Circular Knitting Machine with Eyelet Crochet Needles for Short Pile Fabric
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional circular knitting machines are limited in knitting fabrics with short stitch length due to the need for multiple hooking needles and cutters arranged side by side, leading to reduced stitch capacity and potential shearing failures during high-speed knitting.
Innovation Solution
A circular knitting machine design featuring crochet needles with protruding shoulder portions and eyelets, allowing for crisscrossed movement tracks with knitting and cutter paths, enabling expanded yarn loops to be cut smoothly, thus forming piles without shearing blades, and allowing for more stitches per unit distance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If hooking needles and cutters are disposed side by side at intervals, then shearing function is achieved, but the number of stitches per inch is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The invention combines the functions of hooking needles, cutters, and pile formation into a single integrated crochet needle structure. The crochet needle includes a hook portion for catching yarn, a protruding shoulder portion that forms an eyelet, and works cooperatively with a single cutter to achieve both knitting and shearing functions, thereby increasing stitch density while maintaining shearing capability
Solution Approach 2:
The crochet needle serves multiple functions: it hooks yarn like a knitting needle, forms the eyelet structure for pile creation, and works with the cutter to shear the yarn loop. This multi-functional design eliminates the need for separate hooking needles and cutters arranged side by side, allowing more stitches per inch while achieving the same shearing effect
2Ease of manufacture
If shearing element swings toward pile element with knife edge, then shearing is achieved, but control accuracy requirement increases and collision risk rises
Solution Approach 1:
The protruding shoulder portion of the crochet needle acts as an intermediary structure between the cutter and the yarn loop. It forms a predetermined eyelet that guides the cutter's action, ensuring the cutter engages with the yarn loop in a controlled manner without requiring high-precision positioning or risking collision with the needle body
Solution Approach 2:
The crochet needle preliminarily forms the eyelet structure by its protruding shoulder portion before the cutter arrives. This pre-formed structure ensures the yarn loop is properly positioned and tensioned, allowing the cutter to perform shearing reliably without requiring complex real-time control adjustments
3Device complexity
If yarn loop tension is not changed during shearing, then simple structure is maintained, but shearing failure occurs with soft yarn
Solution Approach 1:
The protruding shoulder portion of the crochet needle automatically tensions the yarn loop by its geometric structure as the needle moves through its cycle. This self-tensioning action occurs without additional mechanical components, maintaining structural simplicity while ensuring the yarn loop is sufficiently tensioned for reliable shearing of soft yarn
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables the knitting of pile fabrics with short stitch length without shearing failures, increasing stitch density and eliminating the need for secondary processing steps, while facilitating color changes and reducing mechanical collisions.
Implementation Method 1
Each of the protruding shoulder portions of the plurality of crochet needles is configured to be capable of expanding a yarn loop on one of the plurality of crochet needles
Data Source
AI summary
A circular knitting machine for knitting a pile fabric with short stitch length, the circular knitting machine includes a needle dial, a needle bed, a gap formed by the needle dial and the needle bed, knitting needles on the needle dial, crochet needles on the needle bed, a cutter holder, and cutters on the cutter holder and facing the gap. Movement tracks of the crochet needles are crisscrossed with movement tracks of the knitting needles and movement tracks of the cutters. Each of the crochet needles has a butt portion, a hook portion, and a protruding shoulder portion between the butt portion and the hook portion, the protruding shoulder portion forms an eyelet, and the protruding shoulder portion is configured to be capable of expanding a yarn loop on the crochet needles to facilitate the cutters to cut the yarn loop at the eyelet to form a pile.