The Journal of The Textile Institute

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22—DYNAMIC FORCES IN WEFT-KNITTING PART

III: YARN TENSIONS DURING THE LOOP-FORMING
PROCESS

G. R. Wray & N. D. Burns

To cite this article: G. R. Wray & N. D. Burns (1976) 22—DYNAMIC FORCES IN WEFT-KNITTING
PART III: YARN TENSIONS DURING THE LOOP-FORMING PROCESS, The Journal of The Textile
Institute, 67:5, 162-165, DOI: 10.1080/00405007608630560

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00405007608630560

Published online: 18 Nov 2008.

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 162 22—Dynamic Forces in Weft-knitting. Part III: Yarn

22—DYNAMIC FORCES IN WEFT-KNITTING

PART III: YARN TENSIONS DURING THE LOOP-FORMING
PROCESS*

By G. R. WRAY and N. D. BURNS

Measurements are reported of the yarn tensions arising during the knitted-loop-formation
process. An approxirriate method for the analysis of yarn tension is demonstrated, and the
theoretical results derived from this are compared with experimental results. Reasonably close
agreement is observed, although the method ol* analysis is sensitive to small errors.
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1. INTRODUCTION
In an earlier paper, the authors ^ described a yarn-force transducer for measuring the
forces between an individual sinker (or verge) and the yarn during the normal weft-knitting
process. By combining such results^ with those obtained from a yarn-friction-testing
apparatus 3, which determines the frictional tension when a yarn is drawn at knitting speed
through a stationary needle, it is possible to predict accurately the forces imposed on the
needle by the yarn during the knitting operation.
The transducers for measuring yarn forces' and cam forces^ were fitted to a 10-in.-
diameter (25-4-cm-diameter), 18-needles/in. (7-needles/cm) circular-knitting machine, which
was used to knit plain fabric from 150-den (17-tex) bulked polyester-fibre (Crimplene) yarn.

2. PREDICTION OF YARN-FRICTION VALUES

The ratio of tensions in the yarn as it passes over either the needle or verge elements,
when these are considered as friction bollards'*, is:

where K = Aexp( — -tiS) and is a constant for any particular yarn speed (S), R is the bollard
radius, Ti and .72 are the input and output tensions, respectively, 0 is the wrap angle, and
Y, n. A, and r] are constants.
This Equation (1) was empirically derived by the authors* from Amontons's well-
known coil-friction equation. Although it does not specifically include any allowance for
yarn-hysteresis effects s, it nevertheless gave a good correlation between theoretical and
experimental values for the particular yarn type used (which did not exhibit strong hysteresis
effects).The variation of A^ with speed was found to be small, and, for this analysis, it was
therefore treated as a constant. The constants were measured as given in Table I.

Table 1

Knitting Element K y n
Needle (thickness 0-44 nun) 0-628 0 805 0-808
Verge (thickness 0-56 mm) 0-493 0-553 0-912

* Paper submitted by a Fellow of the Textile Institute (Professor G. R. Wray).

J. Text. Inst., 1976, No. 5
 Tensions during the Loop-forming Process— Wray and Burns ' 63
3. COMPARISON OF THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL VALUES
Fig. 1 illustrates three stages in the loop-formation process, each showing the measuring
verge advanced to the right by one-third of the needle pitch, with the yarn supplied from
the left. Successive positions of the verge elements and the needles are indicated by V1-V13
and N1-N13, respectively. In Fig. l(f), tl\e initial hypothesis was made that the yarn was

OLD LOOPS
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^POSITION OF
RELEASE POINT

NEEDLE HOOKS

VERGE.

Fig- 1
Yarn tensions during loop formation in successive stages of one-third needle pitch

being robbed from needle positions N9 and N12 and that the available yarn was more
than that required by needle N6 to form a loop, and consequently the yarn would flow
over needle N6 to the left, i.e., towards the supply direction. However, from initial calcula-
tions of the yarn tensions over the elements from the supply direction, it became obvious
that the tension near needle N6 was far too low for it to be capable of robbing yarn from
needles N9 and N12 owing to the large number of needle and verge contacts. This hypothesis
had to be revised, since the cam slope at needle position Ni2 was one-half of the slope
at needle position N6, and needle N12 was therefore capable of supplying only half the
yarn requirements of needle N6 to form its loop. The needle in position N6 must draw
yarn from both the supply and the back-robbing directions, and calculations of the tension
build-up on the supply side suggest that this revised hypothesis is plausible. The predicted

J. Text. Itist., 1976, No. 5

 164 22—Dynamic Forces In Weft-knitting. Part III: Yarn
tensions around needle N6 in Fig. l(c) are 60 gf (589 mN) on the supply side and 95 gf
(931 niN) on the robbed side. The latter tension value is not immediately obvious and needs
explaining in terms of the earlier process stages. In Fig. l(o), if it can be considered that
motion over verge V7 has just stopped, this defines the output tension for needle position
N7; from this, the tensions throughout the process can be evaluated, and the position
when the yarn tension drops to the take-down value, known as the release point^ can
also be determined. As the verge moves from position VIO to position VI3, the predicted
tension on the output side of the verge changes from 52 gf (510 mN) to 7 gf (69 mN).
The verge positions VI1 and VI2 in Fig. 1 {b) and (c) were equally spaced between positions
yiO and V15, and it was therefore possible to approximate to the yarn tension on their
input sides by linear proportion according to their distances from the original position VIO.
This obviously provided only approximate tension values, but, once these were known,
and by using the flow directions in Fig. I {h) and (c) and the position of the release point
shown in Fig. I(fl), they could be improved to suit the dynamic conditions of each diagram.
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In making comparisons with experimentally obtained values, several practical limita-

tions emerge. For instance, verges differ slightly in shape owing to their differing amounts
of wear, and it is unlikely that the frictional relation would be the same for every verge
element. In addition, the method of determining the yarn flow was approximate and took
little account of yarn stretch, and the analysis assumed that the needle accurately followed
the cam profile throughout the process.
Fig. 2(a) shows the experimental yarn-tension plot, which is an enlargement of the
trace shown as Fig. 3(*) in a previous paper^ for a stitch-draw of 0-067 in. (1-70 mm).
Also shown are the theoretically predicted vertical forces on the verge obtained by adding

f il£. 2
Yarn force on verge during loop formaiion fur: («)"0()67-in. (i •70-riini) stitch-draw; (/.) 0108-ln. (2-73-
mm) slilch-draw; and (c) 4437-gf (43-5-N) fabric-take-down tension

/ . Text. Inst., 1976, No. 5

 Tensions during the Loop-forming Process—Wray and Burns 1 (>^

the tensions on each yarn arm acting on the verge (as shown in Fig. I) and correcting
these lor their angular disposition. These show a close similarity in shape but are displaced
relatively to each other, since it was impossible to predict with any precision the position
of the verges and needles at which the first verge just contacted the yarn and began to
register a force; an error of merely a few thousandths of an inch leads to an apparently
large displacement between the two traces. The close similarity between the traces proves
that the major component of the tension increase occurs as the yarn passes over the verges,
and it is also apparent that the tension drops to the take-down value within two verge-
pitches of the bottom of the stitch cam. The analysis was repeated under similar conditions
to this example, except that the stitch-draw was increased to 0-108 in. (2-73 mni), as in
Fig. 3(f) of the previous paper2. The experimental and theoretical plots are superimposed
and shown in Fig. 2(b). During the experiments, the yarn-force transducer^ tended to
cut-off before reaching the high force levels but, if allowance is made for this, the close
degree of similarity between the theoretical and experimental traces is clearly demonstrated.
The analysis was repeated for the case in which the fabric take-down tension was
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increased to 4437 gf (43-5 N), as in Fig. A{b) of the previous paper2. The experimental and
theoretical plots are shown superimposed in Fig. 2(c). The shape of the theoretical plot
did not correspond very well to that of the experimental plot, especially in the region of
the second peak, since the method of analysis is very susceptible to small errors.

4. CONCLUSION
The method of analysis used for the work reported in this paper was subject to con-
siderable errors and approximations, but it was difficult to see how any better method
could be evolved. In view of these difficulties, a fairly dose approximation was achieved.
The most interesting features of the findings are the clear demonstration of the robbing-
back phenomenon, the rapidity with which the tension falls away after the needle leaves
the base of the stitch cam, and the very much larger proportion of the braking force imposed
on the yarn by the verge than by the needle.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are grateful to the Bentley Engineering Group for sponsoring the work
reported in this paper and to Loughborough University of Technology for providing the
research facilities.
I

REFERENCES
1 G. R. Wray and N. D. Burns. J. Text. Inst., 1976, 67, 119.
2 G. R. Wray and N. D. Burns. /. Text. Inst., 1976, 67, 124.
J G. R. Wray and N. D. Burns. J. Text. Inst., 1976, 67, 113.
4 D. E. Smith, N. D. Burns, and G. R. Wray. J. Text. Inst., 1974, 65, 337.
5 P. Grosberg and D. E. A. Plate. J. Text. Inst., 1969. 60, 268.
6 S. C. Dangel. Knitt. Outerw. Times, 1967, 37, No. 19, 278.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Received 15.7.1975
Loughborough University of Technology, Accepted for publication 6 8 1 9 / 5
Loughborough,
Leicestershire.
Present address of N. D. Burns:
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Canterbury,
Christchurch 1,
New Zealand.

J. Text. Inst., 1976, No. 5