At the IBM – the World Fair for Apparel Production Technology and Textile Processing - in Cologne, for instance, expansion of the fair concept to include the growth market of "technical textiles" proved highly successful. Already in 2003, fair-goers from sectors such as automotive and aeronautical engineering, upholstered furniture and medicine accounted for 30% of all visitors to the IBM.
A study performed by Frost & Sullivan concludes that an ever greater volume of technical textiles is being used in car manufacturing. The European automotive engineering industry alone is expected to use technical textiles to a value of just under 1.2 billion US Dollars by the year 2008, compared to
1.05 billion in the year 2000.
Current developments testify to the excellent sales opportunity this opens up for high-quality circular knitted fabrics.
The reasons for the outstanding suitability of circular knitted fabric for application fields such as car seat covers, door panelling, roof linings and rear window shelves are its extreme design flexibility, its sophisticated appearance, its ability to convey a high degree of pleasant seating comfort, and its high elasticity values. Its elasticity particularly has major benefits to offer when working with complex seat geometries.
Quality and reliability are the key to success.
The qualitative demands made by the automotive industry are highly stringent, and have resulted in raising quality standards among the supplier industries to an extremely high level. This also applies to the ability to reliably maintain standards and perform just-in-time deliveries.
This means in turn that the circular knitting machines used are required to comply with these same high standards in terms of the quality of fabrics produced and also of their reliability and flexibility. This is the reason that leading manufacturers of textiles used in the automotive industry place their trust in Mayer & Cie. circular knitting machines.
MCPE 2.4 – the yardstick for quality in colour jacquard all-over velour.
The MCPE 2.4 reliably produces flawless colour jacquard all-over plush fully electronically to an exemplary standard of quality. At the same time, electronically controlled needle selection at every feeder makes for extreme patterning variety coupled with minimal resetting times. A special feature of this machine is the sinker cam featuring one of Mayer & Cie.'s own developments: transfer sinker technology. This allows large, difficult float stitches – as well as large colour motifs – to be reliably produced free of faults, as it guarantees a regular loop position no matter what the pattern combination.
The high standard of quality of all-over plush knited on the MCPE 2.4 is due to the fact that all loop colours occur in accordance with the pattern in every course, and that every stitch carries a plush loop. At the loop feeder, only the selected needles are active, while unselected colour threads are laid as float stitches over the formed loops. This is performed to an outstanding degree of precision as a result of MCT's own unique double sinker technology. The ground and loop thread are pre-formed to create loops prior to knockover, and the loops are calibrated. All loops are precisely evenly formed with maximum care of the thread. The result: Greater reliability and first and foremost lower shearing losses – a highly significant factor given the high cost of yarns. An additional strength of the MCPE 2.4 is its capacity for continuous high performance, with for example 72 feeders per 30" diameter.
In summary, its electronically controlled needle selection means that the MCPE 2.4 offers outstanding patterning freedom, with any optional number of colours and different constructions in the ground fabric. Resetting times are minimal, so enhancing productivity. It is practically unbeatable in its ability to cope with long float stitches, and it sets new standards in terms of the achievable quality of its all-over plush. High performance and outstanding availability make the MCPE 2.4 both highly productive and exemplary in terms of its quality standard.
A new feature at the ITMA 2003: Jacquard plush with electronic needle and sinker selection.
To date, electronic plush circular knitting machines have featured electronic needle selection, like the MCPE 2.4 described above, or electronic sinker selection, as in the case of the MPU 1.6 E.
At the ITMA 2003, a circular knitting machine for jacquard plush featuring electronic needle and sinker selection was presented for the very first time.
In conjunction with the full 3-way technique, this new technology opened up previously unenvisaged patterning possibilities: Structured plush, jacquard plush, all-over plush, patterned ground fabric or combinations of all these. Use of the full 3-way technique also turns the fabric ground into an appealing eye catcher. A MCT-specific sinker design used in conjunction with a special system of sinker guidance unique to MCT tension the loop and integrate it firmly into the ground, so ensuring that flawless plating is achieved every time and reducing shearing losses.
Another special feature is the thread delivery and monitoring system CONI SEP, which is fitted as a standard feature of the MPU 0.8. By ensuring separate thread positions, this combined jacquard and positive feeder guarantees a consistent level of thread tension at all times, with no-contact yarn monitoring at the yarn drum.
The MPU 0.8 EE is the versatile circular knitting machine for jacquard plush, designed to allow any circular knitting factory to stay fully abreast of the latest developments – not only in the fashion and home wear sector, but also in technical textiles for furniture and upholstery fabrics to cover car seats through to textiles for the aviation industry.
The future is now!
Their high degree of elasticity and appealing appearance make circular knitted fabrics unbeatable for a wide range of different applications, also and particularly in the field of technical textiles. Circular knitted fabric has already started to become an established feature in the automotive sector.
While growth in the proportion of textiles used in the automotive sector is set to increase only steadily, knitted fabrics in general and circular knitted fabrics in particular may look forward to disproportionately high growth opportunities: Their unique benefits lend them unmatched benefits over other surface materials.
But in other fields too, such as medicine, the building industry, the home wear sector or for environmental engineering applications, the use of textiles is on the increase. And wherever elasticity is called for, there is an opportunity for circular knitted fabrics. Inelastic yarns made of metal are already capable of being knitted to form elastic fabrics on the Mayer & Cie. Relanit 0.8. Spacer fabrics with good elastic recovery properties made of PES materials are already part of the production scope offered by the OV 3.2 QC, also manufactured by Mayer & Cie.
It is already possible to envisage the production of fabrics using metal yarns for the dissipation of electrosmog – or also to heat clothing or seats.
The fields of application for technical textiles are many and varied. Due to their product-specific benefits and their scope for efficient production, circular knitted surface materials are bound to gain increasing market share in this sector as they have long since done in their traditional market segments of fashion, underwear and leisure wear. The automotive engineering sector is certain to become one of its latest stronghold markets.
