Comprehensive Viva Preparation | Fabric Production Techniques

Comparison between Knitted and Woven Fabrics

Knitting is a method of producing the fabrics, where yarns are interlooped to form a flat fabric. Two types of knitting exist, namely, warp knitting and weft knitting whereas, weaving is another method to produce fabrics by the right angle interlacement of 2 sets of yarn –named as warp [longitudinal direction or length-wise direction] and weft [transverse direction or width-wise direction]. The prominent differences between the knitted and woven fabrics, machine and manufacturing process are mentioned below.

Knitting | Technical Knitting

Md. Emdad Sarker
Assistant Professor
Department of Fabric Engineering, BUTEX

Knitting is another method of fabric production, where yarns are interlooped to form a flat fabric. Two types of knitting exist, namely, warp knitting and weft knitting.

Weft knitting is the most common method in use, after weaving, because of its versatility and Weft-knitting technology also offers considerable advantages in terms of cost, flexibility, and versatility as compared to weaving technique in the production of suitable structures for a contourable protective material. This, however, has not been proven successful, mostly because of the low initial modulus of a knitted fabric, which is due to the high degree of interlocking of the yarns. Since the fabric is formed by interlocking of the yarns, the yarns are flexible and are free to move within and out of the loops, and thus stretch when a load is applied, resulting in low initial modulus, low capital and low floor costs. A weft-knitted fabric can be produced using one single strand of yarn Figure-1(a). while a warp-knitted fabric or a woven fabric requires the same number of yarns as required through the width of the fabric Figure-1(b).

Figure-1: Representation of knitted structure (a) weft-knitted structure; (b) warp-knitted structure [1]

Knitting Calculations