Circular Knitting Machines for Knitting Jute and Jute-Cotton Blends

Knitted cotton goods are more prevalent among people and meet about half of the world's clothing needs.  Moreover, the knitting machines that we have in the market are mainly for knitting cotton.

                                                   When we talk of knitting jute then due to its hairiness, harshness, friction and inextensibility, it was not possible to knit jute in the machines that were readily available for the knitting of finer yarns. So, there was a necessity to design such knitting machines on which we could knit 100% jute as well as jute-cotton blended yams. Manufacturers made some alterations and improvements in the previous designs of the machines to make them suitable for knitting flawless single jersey apparels from pure jute and jute-cotton mixed yarns. Our company is one of the leading circular knitting machine exporters supplying durable and high-quality knitting machines to the customers.

The manufacturers made changes in the several parameters of the circular knitting machine which included needles, gauge, the cylinder, positive feed system, the takedown system, and the sinker cam designs to develop the compatible prototype machine into a new form of the circular knitting machine. This machine was capable of knitting jute.

i.                    These knitting devices have a lower gauge as compared to that of the cotton knitting machines.

ii.                  The needles are much thicker and stronger as there are chances of needle breakage due to the properties of jute.

iii.                The speed of these machines is lower than those of the traditional ones.

Main components of the circular jute knitting machine:

The main features of this type of circular knitting machine are as follows:

i.                    Needle bed

ii.                  The control and drive system

iii.                Tension device

iv.               Yarn feed carriers

v.                 Yarn feed control

vi.               Fabric length control device

vii.             Fabric takedown mechanism

viii.           The quality control system comprising of stop motions, lint remover and fault detector

Needle:

We must give importance to the thickness of the needle; otherwise; the knitting of jute will become stuck due to the wreckage of the thinner needles. For knitting jute, the best thickness of each needle is 1.71 mm. Also, the latch and hook portion of the machine should be sturdy and robust. The width of the needle hook clearance must be enough to accommodate the jute yam. The cylinder of 3 gauges containing three needles in one inch is available in this type of knitting machine.

Feeders:

A yam feeder is a device which presents the yarn managed to create the one course per revolution of the machine on the rotation of the cylinder to knit a piece of fabric. The knitting machines employed for knitting jute comprises of a single stationary feeder.

As jute is very rough and granular, therefore, we do not give much importance to its rate of production via a knitting device.

Sinkers:

A sinker is a metal plate, situated between the two needles, encompassing the cylinder. Their main functions are:

i.                    Formation of a loop

ii.                  Holding down

iii.                Knocking over

For the knitting of 100% jute and jute-cotton blends, we have to make use of particular types of sinkers in the knitting machine because of the following reasons:

a.    The sinker applied to this type of machine should be of a longer noose.  As jute yarn offers higher friction than that of cotton, the loop around the needle becomes tighter, immediately causing the uplifting of the knitted fabric. To arrest this tendency of the uplifting of material, we employ sinkers with a longer noose.

b.    The length and height of the noose push the casted loop in a downward direction. This holding down of loop by the sinker enables the smooth clearing of the loop at the clearing point. For the correct execution of this step, there should be sufficient height and length of the noose.

Positive Feed:

The positive feed which we also call as the storage feed system is a device used for measuring and controlling the feed of yarn. A positive feed guarantees the smooth flow of the yarn from the package to the needle. These feeders also guide the feeding of yam for the required length to form a loop. The positive feed used in this type of knitting machine is of tape nip variety. The positive feed unit also possesses a knot-catch attachment, which is 2mm wide to enhance the flow of the jute yarn.

Take down system:

As the jute fabric which will come out of the knitting head would be massive, therefore it needs to have a more pulling tension while knitting. The arrangement of the takedown system should be such that it offers enough tension to the jute material. By adjusting the eccentricity of the cam ring, we can further increase or reduce the takedown tension. The takedown system applied in the circular knitting machines used for knitting 100% jute and jute-cotton blends is of the usual type.

Cam design:

It consists of the following:

a)    Cylinder cam: The design of cams should be such that it must suit the needle latch movement for the three positions: knit, clear and tuck. To design the cylinder cam, we must consider the following parameters of the needle.

b)    Clearing height for the needle should be 24mm

c)    Tuck height must be 16mm

d)    Lowest level knitting point should be 5mm

The cam should also have the provision to close all the 10 feeders except one. The bore dimension of the cylinder cam is 450 mm.

To design a cylinder cam, we must keep the following points in mind:

i.                   Knit cam:

We can bring the stitch cam very near to the cylinder top, i.e. up to 1.55mm from the top of the cylinder.

ii.                 Tuck cam:

The tuck cam position is 16mm from the top of the cylinder.

iii.              Clearing cam:

The clearing height of the needle is 24 mm. The clearing cam is meant to go up and down. When it is in the 'up' position, we call it a 'clear position' and when it comes 'down', we refer to it as tuck position.

Sinker cam:

Designing of the sinker cam depends upon the cylinder stitch cam length and clearing cam length. The principal role of this component is to offer a proper timing adjustment.

Machine diameter:

The diameter of the machine employed for knitting jute is usually 17 inches with 10 feeders.

Production rate:

It depends heavily on the machine revolution per minute. The custom built circular jute knitting machine offers an rpm of 18.

Contact us:

Our corporation, Bharat Machinery Works, is one of the prime circular knitting machine exporters providing rust-resistant, durable and high-quality machines.

If you want to have a circular knitting machine, contact us.