Geometrical and dimensional properties of plain knitted fabrics made from glass fiber yarns for composite reinforcement

In this study, a series of plain knitted fabrics are produced on a flat knitting machine with glass fiber yarns for composite reinforcement. Their geometrical and dimensional properties are experimentally investigated. The influences of the loop length, fabric tightness factor, and yarn linear density on the number of the courses per cm and number of the wales per cm, loop shape factor and thickness are analyzed. The fiber volume fraction is calculated from filament and fabric dimensional parameters and its relation with fabric tightness factor is discussed. It is expected that the results obtained from this work could be useful and helpful in knitted fabric composite design.