The synthetic leather is being widely used in more areas such as clothing, shoes, bags, furniture and automotive industries, due to similarity of appearance and many physical and mechanical properties to the natural leather. In the production process of synthetic leather, the substrate fabrics have a significant role in final application as a reinforcement component. Fiber fineness, yarn count and twist, type of fabric (woven, knitted and nonwoven), technical characteristics of fabric such as structure and density are very important in the selection of substrate fabric using synthetic leather. The purpose of this study is to apply warp knitted fabric substrate due to loop features and its production method instead of weft knitted fabric. In this regard, the effect of structural parameters of warp knitted fabrics as substrate on physical and mechanical properties of artificial leather is investigated. The part- set threading technique and in-lay yarn was used in order to producing warp knitted fabric samples with different loop structures and density on tricot machine. After knitting production, the fabrics were coated as fabric substrate of synthetic leather. Finally, the sample leather characteristics are measured. These properties such as: tensile strength (breaking force, elongation at breaking, initial and secondary modulus), tongue tearing strength (maximum tearing force), bending (bending length) and bagging of properties (bagging resistance, bagging residual height) are reported. As well as the experimental tests, the warp knitted fabric structures were compared with weft knitted fabric. Using statistical analysis (one way ANOVA), the structure and direction of warp knitted fabric had significant effect on physical and mechanical parameters. Finally, tensile strength, tearing strength and bending properties of synthetic leather were predicted using artificial neural network technique. Fabric structure, loop density and direction of warp knitted fabrics were used as input parameters of the artificial neural network model. The physical and mechanical properties of synthetic leather samples producing with warp knitted fabric substrate show good agreement results comparing with weft knitted fabric substrate. As observed results, we have found remarkable results to use warp knitted fabric structures as substrate in the synthetic leather. Keywords: Synthetic leather, Substrate fabric, Warp knitted fabric structure, Mechanical and physical properties, Artificial neural network.
