*3.1.6. Uniaxial knitted fabric*

The special looped structure of knitted fabrics results in large gaps in the fabric structure. This reduces the overall fiber volume fraction of the composite leading to low mechanical proper‐ ties. Furthermore, the fabric is loosely formed unlike a woven fabric, which leads to high elongation and low stiffness. These problems have led to structural modifications of knitted fabrics by using inlay yarns either in fabric length or width direction to increase the mechanical properties of the resulting composites. Figure 5 presents the schematic views of these modifi‐ cations. The inlay yarns are trapped inside the knitted loops during the fabric formation. It was shown that the tensile strength of uniaxial knitted fabric composites can be improved significantly in the inlaid directions [49].

**Figure 5.** (a) Two-dimensional warp in-laid weft knitted fabric (b) 2D weft in-laid weft knitted fabric (c) 2D warp inlaid warp knitted fabric (d) 2D weft in-laid warp knitted fabric, and (e) 2D weft in-laid spiral knitted fabric [49].
