STUDYING VARIATION IN LOOP LENGTH IN A COTTON INTERLOCK FABRIC AFTER THE WEAVING AND DYEING PROCESS

Abstract

The 100% cotton interlock structure has been widely used to produce winter garments thanks to its thermal properties and comfort. However as with all weft-knitted fabrics, it presents much dimensional instability. For a long time now, companies have attempted to minimise this problem by optimising production processes and implementing quality controls to obtain more dimensionally stable fabrics. The dimensional instability of knitted fabrics from their production stage until a finished fabric is formed is subject to wide variability and, therfore, needs to be minimised. One of the variables that intervenes in fabric shrinkage is loop length.The process followed to analyze this in accordance with regulation UNE-EN 14970 is somewhat bothersome as it is necessary to identify wales and the direction samples unravel in, cut all along a course, count the number of loops along a given length, remove yarn from the fabric, place the measuring machine pincers by foreseeing loss of twist to measure its length, and repeat all this 10 times to then calculate its mean. This study proposes finding the relationship between loop length and the variables wales/cm, courses/cm, stitch density/cm2, weight, tightness factor, Kc, Kw and Kr to obtain knitted fabrics with an optimum dimensional stability to thus guarantee end product quality.

Keywords

• Interlock fabrics
• Skrinkage fabric
• loop length
• Cotton