Patent Application
20080044620
Preferred fabrics are high pile knitted or woven fabrics that include textured low shrinkage pile yarns.
Suitable pile yarns include textured FOY and HOY yarns. Texturing these yarns imparts a small amount of crimp to the yarns. The yarns are generally synthetic polymeric yarns, e.g., 100% polyester yarns. A preferred yarn is textured 212/94 T-659 yarn with a ribbon cross section, a polyester yarn commercially available from DuPont under the trademark SOFTEC®. The skein shrinkage in boiled water of this yarn is about 4%. Other suitable yarns include high elongation, low tenacity yarns, which have been textured. In some implementations, the yarn has an elongation of about 10% to about 60%, and tenacity of about 2.0 to about 3.5 gpd (grams of breaking strength per denier). Preferred yarns exhibit a skein shrinkage in boiled water of less than 7%, more preferably 5% or less. The yarns are textured using conventional texturing processes, for example false twist texturing, disk texturing, and friction texturing. The amount of crimp retained by the yarn after texturing is generally less than the crimp that would be retained by a similar POY yarn. However, the degree of crimp has been found to be adequate to impart desirable properties when the yarns are used in high pile fabrics.
The pile yarns, backing yarns and stitch yarns of the fabric, which may be double needle bar warp knit, can be the same, or the backing yarns and stitch yarns can be different. Suitable stitch yarns include 70/34 Tx to 150/34 Tx yarns, preferably 100/34 Tx. Suitable backing yarns include 100/34 Tx to 300/34 Tx yarns, preferably 150/34 Tx.
The fabric may have any appropriate construction. Suitable fabric constructions include circular knit, warp knit and woven. The pile may be formed, in circular knit constructions, by cutting the loop yarn on the knitting machine, or by utilizing a sinker loop terry knit construction in which high sinkers are cut during the finishing process. Warp knit fabrics with a pile surface may be produced on a double bar needle Raschel machine, e.g., as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,196,032, 6,199,410, 6,832,497 and 6,837,078, the full disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein. Suitable woven fabrics have at least one raised pile surface, e.g., woven velvets.
The fabric may have single face pile or double face pile. The fabric may also include regions of low pile and/or no pile, which may in some cases be arranged according to body mapping considerations. Such pile patterns are described in U.S. Ser. No. 60/682,695 and U.S. Ser. No. 11/348,427, the complete disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein.
Three fabric swatches were manufactured, using substantially identical manufacturing processes. The swatches were warp knit in a double needle bar Raschel process, with the pile being generated by splitting the interconnecting yarns, as described, e.g., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,832,497, 6,196,032 and 6,199,410. Similar results can be obtained by circular knitting and cutting the loops to form the pile, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,419. The yarns used in the samples, and the resulting characteristics of the samples, were as follows:
(1) Comparative Example using textured POY yarn:
This sample was made of standard 150/68 textured polyester yarn, dyed in package dyeing on dye tubes. (Standard texturing of POY yarn). The skein shrinkage of this yarn in boiled water was 14.5%.
The finished fabric had good cover factor and resiliency, but was dull, lacked free movement of the pile, had a dry hand, and exhibited excessive friction (fabric to fabric), which would tend to make a garment containing the fabric difficult to take off and put on.
(2) Comparative Example using non-textured FOY yarn:
This sample was made of 212/94 T-659, flat polyester yarn with a ribbon cross-section. The skein shrinkage of this yarn in boiled water was 2.82%. The fabric was piece-dyed.
The finished fabric was shiny, had a high luster, exhibited free movement of the pile, and low friction fabric to fabric. However, the fabric had a low cover factor, to the extent that the pile was see-through.
(3) Example using textured FOY yarn:
This sample was made of 212/94 T-659 polyester yarn which had been textured. The skein shrinkage of this yarn in boiled water was 4%.
The finished fabric had good cover factor and resiliency, as well as good flow of the pile, soft hand, and low friction fabric to fabric. Thus, this fabric combined the desirable attributes of samples (1) and (2), without the disadvantage of either sample.
A number of embodiments of the invention have been described. Nevertheless, it will be understood that various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims.
This application claims the benefit from U.S. Provisional Patent Application 60/805,526, filed Jun. 22, 2006.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60805526 | Jun 2006 | US |
