Influence of seam types and directions on drapability of seamed knitted fabrics

In order to acquire a good understanding of the drapability of seamed knitted fabrics,four representative samples of knitted fabric were selected and sewn by two seam types using four seam directions.Influence of seam types and seam directions on the drapability of knitted fabrics was investigated through experiments.The results show that seamed knitted fabrics have greater drape coefficient,smaller number of folds,stable minimum amplitude of folds,higher maximum amplitude of folds and deteriorated uniformity of the distribution of folds.The sample with flat lock seam has higher drape coefficient than the sample with overlock seam.Both seam types and seam directions both have significant influence on the light-weight knitted fabrics.However,only seam directions have significant influence on the drape coefficient of the heavy-weight knitted fabrics and the influence of seam types is insignificant.