A Study of the Physical Properties of Weft Knit Fabrics (1998)

Knit products which had been limited only to underwear, recently became popularized, fashionized and highly classified covering even outer garments such as sportswear like golfwear, woman's dress, and man' s suit. As fashion cycle is getting shorter and the more a nation advanced prefers knit to woven fabrics knit industry has a very bright prospect, particularly woman's knit which is sensitive to fashion can be said as a fashion product with high value added. This study is to grasp the physical properties of stitch which are fundamental to the development of knit products. For this purpose, 2/20s of 100% wool were woven by the author of this study to basic plain stitch, rib stitch, varied transfer stitch, and float stitch on a SEMASEIKI cross knitter 7G to test the physical properties, and the result was as follows; 1. As for the relation between knit stitch and rate of extension recovery, rate of extension recovery was higher in the course direction than in the wale direction of three stitches except transfer stitch; rib stitch showed the highest rate of extension recovery in the course direction while float stitch showed the highest rate of extension recovery in the wale direction. 2. As for the relation between knit stitch and bursting strength elastic rib stitch showed higher bursting strength to indicate elasticity is an important factor of bursting strength and float stitch showed higher bursting strength too to indicate that the floating yarn on the surface plays a role of support. 3. As for the relation between knit stitch and air permeability perforated transfer stitch showed the lowest air permeability to prove that the size of perforation affects on the air permeability a great deal. 4. As for the relation between knit stitch and warmth retaining rib stitch through two lined needle bar showed the highest degree. The reason the warmth of perforated transfer stitch didn't decrease much was because the perforation wasn't big enough and content of air increased from the unevenness of the perforated parts through stitch variation. Based upon this result, each stitch can be characteristically summarized as follows; plain stitch showed a stable condition of knit cloth in four kinds of physical property test. And rib stitch is proper to tighten the edge of sleeve or clothe making use of its excellent extension recovery and to make socks for the highest bursting strength and warmth retaining. In the case of transfer stitch, seasonable designs can be taken by controlling the size of loop. Considering the pleasantness, underwear should be made of stitches with good air permeability float stitch was revealed to have color and pattern effects and a great bursting strength. This study has limitations in the aspect that it dealed with a small part of various knit stitches and the items of physical property test were not enough. The author of this study hopes that further studies would make deeper understandings about knit stitch based on more varied stitches and physical property tests ultimately to contribute to the development of fashionable designs proper to maximize the usage, function and originality.