Novel Method to Evaluate the Low-Stress Shearing Behaviour of Knitted Fabrics

In this paper, the ability of the pulling-through method with a distance plate for measuring the shearing properties of knitted fabrics was studied. The conventional extraction method does not have a good correlation with the shearing properties of woven fabrics due to the complex deformation of the fabrics during testing. This study investigated a modified approach very similar to the conventional extraction method in order to evaluate the shearing behaviour of knitted fabrics. In this technique, the test is performed by a special pulling device mounted on a tensile testing machine consisting of two transparent horizontal plates: a replaceable base plate with a hole in the center, and a distance plate placed at a specified distance from the base plate. The shear properties of different knitted fabrics were measured by KES and the pulling-through method. The results reveal a high correlation between the pulling-through curve features and shear properties of the knitted fabrics. ric specimen was pulled through a cylindrical ring. The fabric is folded, compressed and rubbed against the interior wall of the ring during withdrawal. They reported that the pulling force correlates with the fabric weight, bending properties, the coefficient of friction and work of compression. It is claimed that the extraction of a fabric through the ring could also be a method to evaluate mechanical properties, including shearing [7]. Alamdar [8] reported that the extraction method does not have a good correlation with the shearing properties of woven fabrics due to the complex deformation of the fabrics during testing. Variation in the pulling force is high as a result of the change in the folding configuration formed by the fabric passing through the ring. This variation may necessitate an increase in the number of tests. In order to reduce the variation in results as well as control the folding configuration dur ing the withdrawal, a novel technique was developed which is very similar to the conventional pulling-through method [9 - 15]. In this technique, the test is performed using a special pulling device mounted on a tensile testing machine consisting of two transparent horizontal plates: a replaceable base plate with a hole in the center and a distance plate made of plexiglass which is placed at a specified distance from the specimen and