SEAMLESS TECHNOLOGY ON CIRCULAR KNITTING MACHINES

Abstract

With industrial progress, the advancements in garment manufacturing have evolved from cut & sew to complete garment knitting, which produces one entire garment without sewing or linking process. Seamless knitting technology is similar to sock manufacture, the specialized circular knitting machines producing 3 dimensional garments with no side seams, with the waistband integrated with body of the garment and with knitted washing instructions and logos. The paper starts by presenting the main advantages of seamless garments but also some limitations because the technology. Because for a seamless garment, which is realized as a knitted tub, is very important to ensure the required final chest size, it was presented the main components involved: the knitting machine, the garment design and the yarns used. The knitting machines, beside the values of diameters and gauges with a great impact on the chest size, are characterized by a very innovative and complex construction. The design of a seamless garment is fundamental different compared to garments produced on a traditional way because the designer must to work backwards from a finished garment to create the knitting programme that will ultimately give the correct finished size. On the end of the paper it was presented some of the applications of the seamless products that cover intimate apparel and other bodywear, outwear, activewear and functional sportswear, upholstery, industrial, automotive and medical textiles.

Keywords

• seamless products
• advantages
• design
• yarns
• applications