Textiles: knitting – Fabrics or articles – Incorporated unknitted materials
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-22
2001-03-06
Worrell, Danny (Department: 3741)
Textiles: knitting
Fabrics or articles
Incorporated unknitted materials
C066S195000, C024S445000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06196031
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates to a warp knitted fabric comprising loops. The loops are adapted to engage in hooks to form a self-closing fastening. The loop fabric comprises a ground consisting of warp yarns or a wale of stitches and connecting weft yarns or weft yarns which are connected to the warp yarns and a network of loops consisting of loop yarns knitted into the fabric ground. This kind of self-closing loop fabric is familiar in the prior art, notably for pilches for fastening and unfastening the top edges of the pilch.
This invention also relates to a layered system consisting of a support and of a knitted fabric as previously mentioned, the knitted fabric being stuck to the support. The support can be an intermediate support, the layered system then being secured to an article, such as a pilch, or it can be the actual article.
A problem always arising in the production of these self-fastening fabrics is that it is required to use the least possible quantity of weft yarns and warp yarns to make the ground yet to have a structure strong enough to retain the loops satisfactorily on the ground, particularly in a self-supporting position if possible—i.e., well clear of the fabric—to enable the male fastening elements to engage the loops satisfactorily. However, the fewer yarns which are used to make the ground, which is desirable economically, the more difficult it becomes to have loops knitted into the ground which are satisfactorily self-supporting so as to be clear of the ground, something which is desirable to help to obtain a self-fastening fabric of satisfactory quality—i.e., loops which are clear of the ground and which can be engaged readily by the male elements, for example, hooks.
This invention solves this dilemma by proposing a knitted loop fabric requiring fewer yarns from the weight point of view, particularly finer yarns, to make the fabric ground while maintaining the loops knitted into the ground as clear as possible thereof as when thicker yarns are used.
According to the invention, the knitted loop fabric comprising:
a ground of warp yarns or wales of stitches forming a network of wales parallel to one another and of weft connecting yarns or weft yarns, the latter being connected to the warp yarns to form the ground, and
loops knitted into the ground and each consisting of two legs knitted into the ground and of two strands starting from the legs and of an apex connecting the two strands, is characterised in that:
the connection between the weft yarns and the wales is such that each weft yarn is first knitted into a first stitch of a first wale in a weft connection, then into a second stitch of a second w ale in a stitch connection, then into a third stitch of a third wale in a second weft connection, then into a fourth stitch of a fourth wale in a stitch connection and then into a fifth stitch, which corresponds to the first stitch of a subsequent cycle, in a further weft connection,
the second wale and fourth wale being disposed in the wale network between the first wale and the third wale and the two legs of a loop being knitted into the second and fourth stitches respectively.
Because of this configuration of the weft yarns loops are obtained which are well clear of the ground, although the ground is made with yarns which are much smaller in diameter, and therefore lighter, than in the case of the prior art grounds. The reason for this is that the two legs of each loop are knitted into the respective second and fourth stitches, each experiencing two pulls in opposite directions of the weft yarn stitched into the stitch, the two pulls being directed away from the stitch so that by their respective opposing stretchings they tend to maintain the loop well clear of the ground.
According to an improvement of the invention, each wale consists of a cycle or pattern repeat of four stitches consisting alternately of two stitches which are landed on the needle knitting them alternately in a given direction (right to left or left to right) and of two stitches which are landed on the needle knitting them the other way round (left to right or right to left).
The fact that the wales consist of a cycle of four stitches, two of which are stitched in one direction and two in the other, ensures that two adjacent loops always tend to lie or incline in two opposite directions to one another according to the direction in which the wales extend, so that engagement of these loops with the male elements, for example, hooks, is as good as is provided by hooks coming from either side of the fabric, thus ensuring that in the case, for example, of pilches, the engagement of those male parts of the self-closing fastening which are disposed on the upper strip of the left layer is as good as that of the male parts of the self-fastening closure which are disposed on the upper right strip.
Preferably, the second stitch and the fourth stitch are disposed in the same wale—i.e., the second wale and the fourth wale are a single wale—and are separated from one another by a stitch corresponding to a first stitch or a third stitch of a weft yarn cycle.
This results in a fabric having very symmetrical loops.
According to an improvement provided by the invention, each loop consists of a first leg knitted into a said second stitch in one direction of landing on the bar, of an unravelling apex where the loop is unravelled, the unravelling being performed at a needle position between said two third consecutive stitches half-way between two wales and of a second leg knitted into a said fourth stitch in a landing direction opposite to the said one direction of landing, so that the next loop is made with its unravelling apex on the other side of the merged wale comprising the said second stitch and said fourth stitch into which the two legs of the previous loop are knitted.
This ensures that the final stability of the fabric is excellent.
The invention also relates to a layered system comprising a support to which a fabric of the kind hereinbefore described is stuck. More particularly this invention relates to a layered system of which the support is a diaper.
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Adams, Schwartz & Evans P.A.
Aplix
Worrell Danny
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