RADIALLY COLLAPSIBLE AND EXPANDABLE TEXTILE SLEEVE AND METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION THEREOF

摘要

A textile sleeve for routing and protecting elongate members and method of construction thereof are provided. The sleeve has a wall of interlaced monofilament and/or multifilament yarns. Opposite edges of the wall extend along a central axis of the sleeve. The opposite edges are biased into a self-wrapping, overlapping relation with one another to bound a tubular cavity in an in-use first configuration. A plurality of elongate hinges formed with the interlaced yarns extend along the length of the sleeve in substantially parallel relation with the central axis, with the hinges separating relatively rigid, arcuate regions of the wall from one another. The hinges allow the arcuate regions to be moved from the expanded in-use tubular first configuration to a collapsed, second configuration nested with one another to allow significantly increased numbers of the sleeves to be shipped and stowed in a significantly reduced volume of space.