COMFORT PROPERTIES OF FUNCTIONAL WEFT KNITTED SPACER FABRICS

Spacer fabrics or two-faced fabrics represents a class of knits, comprising of two main layers connected by yarns transformed in tucks or loops. Electronic weft knitting machines with two needle beds have the ability to create individual layers of fabric, held together by loops or tucks, or by separate fabrics as connecting layers. This paper investigates the influence of structural parameters on the comfort properties of weft knitted spacer fabrics, produced on Stoll CMS 530 E 6.2 computer controlled flat knitting machines. Fabrics were manufactured with various yarn and structure combinations, thus resulted a number of sixteen spacer fabrics. The face layer, worn to the skin, has been manufactured from Soy protein yarns and the reverse layer from Polyester, Polyamide and Polypropylene yarns. These led to fabrics with different values of the thermal comfort properties (thermal conductivity, thermal resistance, thermal diffusion, relative water vapour permeability) and air permeability, due to their different thickness, weight and porosity.