The smart textile problem and its implication for teaching

The 21st century has seen the textiles industry and academy face the challenge of smart textiles. There is a popular view that describes smartness in textiles as a synonym for responsive behaviour. This perception however is challenged by the idea that all natural textile materials change in reaction to its environment. A question therefore remains as to what responsive behaviour constitutes as smart behaviour. In other words, when does the responsive turn into smart? The textile industry heavily relies on weaving as the construction methodology for cloths. Weaving, and woven materials, have changed very little since the Stone Age. Even the Industrial Revolution only changed the speed and efficiency of weaving - but not the basic structure of woven materials themselves. The dramatic change that was introduced from the Industrial Revolution is the bonded dependency of structures potentials in the specifications of the machines. This link still rule textile manufacture today and the interesting thing here is that our weaving machines have only changed a little in over 250 years. The dramatic introduction and ever increasing development of new technologies and textile components has created, as a result, an inherent gap between cutting edge technologies, advanced material science and what could only be described as ancient textiles construction methodologies. This session will outline the issues concerning smart textiles. It will portray the weaver as a behaviourist learner and will introduce the formation of a new experimental learning space through a plantation of a rhizomatic strategy within a behaviourist discipline. The session will consequently discuss why such seemingly two incommensurable approaches to learning - behaviorism and rhizomatism - may come together and work alongside one another through a new agonistic and interdisciplinary space to allow the development of innovative textile structures. This session will appeal to textiles designers, makers, teachers and researchers from all creative disciplines. It will also appeal to those interested in pedagogic frameworks and research into academic structures and delivery of programs

Rapid Manufactured Textiles

Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is increasingly becoming a viable manufacturing process due to dramatic advantages that are achievable in the area of design complexity. Through the exploration of the design freedom, this paper introduces the concept of manufacturing textiles for potential smart and high performance textile applications. This paper discusses the current limitations associated with the manufacture of textiles through RM and presents a novel methodology for the generation of 3D conformal RM textile articles. The paper concludes that through RM it is entirely possible to manufacture a structure that incorporates drape and free movement properties directly comparable to conventional textiles.Mechanical Engineerin

Smart textiles to promote multidisciplinary stem training

Smart textiles consist of multi-disciplinary knowledge. Disciplines such as physics, mathematics, material science or electrics is needed in order to be able to design and manufacture a smart textiles product. This is why knowledge in smart textiles may be used to showcase high school and university students in basic years of preparation some applications of technical disciplines they are learning. The Erasmus+ project “Smart textiles for STEM training – Skills4Smartex” is a strategic partnership project for Vocational Education and Training aiming to promote additional knowledge and skills for trainees in technical fields, for a broader understanding of interconnections and application of STEM, via smart textiles. Skills4Smartex is an ongoing project within the period Oct. 2018-Sept. 2020, with a partnership of six research providers in textiles www.skills4smartex.eu. The project has three intellectual outputs: the Guide for smart practices (O1), the Course in smart textiles (O2) and the Dedicated e-learning Instrument (O3). The Guide for smart practices consists in the analysis of a survey with 63 textile companies on partnership level and interviews with 18 companies. Main aim of O1 is to transfer from source site to target sites technical and smart textile best practices and the profile of workforce needed for the future textile industry. The needs analysis achieved within O1will serve to conceive the Course for smart textiles with 42 modules (O2), to be accessed via the Dedicated e-learning Instrument (O3). All outputs are available with free access on the e-learning platform: www.adva2tex.eu/portal

Smart education for smart textiles

The aim of this paper is to present the main objectives and achievements of the Skills4Smartex project, according to its declared goals. The Erasmus+ project "Smart textiles for STEM training" is funded with support from the European Commission and it is a Strategic partnership - KA2 / Vocational Education and Training (VET), in the field of transfer of innovation from research providers towards textile enterprises & VET schools. The students within technical education acquire basic disciplines, such as mathematics, physics, technical drawing, chemistry, biology, mechanics, but the horizon of the end applications and usefulness of such basic disciplines is often not touchable. In correlation with these facts, the Skills4Smartex project is centred on improving knowledge, skills and employability of VET students in the STEM related fields, by providing the adequate training instruments to understand multidisciplinary working

Sustainability principles through educational e-textile kit

Innovations in smart textiles technology are on the rise with a promise to add value to the consumer's life (Goodman et al., 2018). However, these innovations and the high development speed involved also raise concerns about environmental issues related to these trends (Van der Velden et al., 2015). Therefore, TTorch project was created which aim is to bring different fields, like electronics and textile engineering, together to create a kit for educational purposes and follow circular economy principles while doing it. TTorch is a creative toy with a development kit for up to 10-year-old children, using e-textile principles. The product kit creates a bridge between engineering and design, by letting the user explore a personal light source and build surroundings to it. The goal of the project is to show how interdisciplinary fields can work together and with that creating different opportunities. This paper gives a short overview of e-textiles, research on e-waste, textile waste and e-textile waste management. Further on it will focus on the necessary collaboration between design, engineering and industry by emphasising difference between core team and network around the core team. The collaboration aim it to create ecological product kit for educational purposes following the concept of STEAM. Discussions will include how collaboration between team members with diverse backgrounds, and surrounding network was necessary to identify specific gap in the market and to evolve the idea from product to development kit

Effect of PEDOT:PSS with secondary dopants and DBD plasma treatment on the conductive properties of polyester fabrics

[Excerpt] Introduction Smart textiles have the capability to interact with the surrounding environment and react in different ways, namely in electrical conduction. The conductive properties of these materials are useful in medical, healthcare, and protective clothing.This research was funded by FEDER funds through the Operational Competitiveness Program– COMPETE, under the projects POCI-01-0247-FEDER-068924, and by National Funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), under the project UID/CTM/00264/2020. Ana Isabel Ribeiro and Cátia Alves acknowledge FCT, MCTES, FSE, and UE PhD grant SFRH/BD/145269/2019 and 2022.10454.BD

Smart nanotextiles: materials and their application

Textiles are ubiquitous to us, enveloping our skin and surroundings. Not only do they provide a protective shield or act as a comforting cocoon but they also serve esthetic appeal and cultural importance. Recent technologies have allowed the traditional functionality of textiles to be extended. Advances in materials science have added intelligence to textiles and created ‘smart’ clothes. Smart textiles can sense and react to environmental conditions or stimuli, e.g., from mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, or magnetic sources (Lam Po Tang and Stylios 2006). Such textiles find uses in many applications ranging from military and security to personalized healthcare, hygiene, and entertainment. Smart textiles may be termed ‘‘passive’’ or ‘‘active.’’ A passive smart textile monitors the wearer’s physiology or the environment, e.g., a shirt with in-built thermistors to log body temperature over time. If actuators are integrated, the textile becomes an active, smart textile as it may respond to a particular stimulus, e.g., the temperature-aware shirt may automatically roll up the sleeves when body temperature rises. The fundamental components in any smart textile are sensors and actuators. Interconnections, power supply, and a control unit are also needed to complete the system. All these components must be integrated into textiles while still retaining the usual tactile, flexible, and comfortable properties that we expect from a textile. Adding new functionalities to textiles while still maintaining the look and feel of the fabric is where nanotechnology has a huge impact on the textile industry. This article describes current developments in materials for smart nanotextiles and some of the many applications where these innovative textiles are of great benefit

Smart Textiles and Wearable Technologies for Sportswear: A Design approach.

Currently there is a great inclination to modify sport and well-being concept by changing the technology in wearable especially thanks to the huge development of technologies in the field of smart textiles. Textiles of today are materials with applications in almost all our activities. Fibres, yarns, fabric and other structures with added-value functionality have been developed for a range of applications textile materials and the textile has become an important platform for high-tech innovations. Smart Textile creates textile products that interact by combining smart materials and integrated computing power into textile applications. The introduction of smart materials and computing technology in textile structures offers an opportunity to develop textiles with a new type of behavior and functionality. Smart Textile and computing technology are introducing a shift in textile, from a passive to a dynamic behavior, from textiles with static functionalities to products that exhibit dynamic functionalities. This work will describe the results of an educational activity carried out inside the Sportswear Studio Lab of Master Degree in Fashion Study at School of Design of Politecnico di Milano. The students were asked to generate a new advanced concept for sport application exploiting the potentiality of smart textile and wearable technology. The projects developed by the students followed a design approach suggested by the author that requires the understanding of: (i) the what (the purpose of the concept); (ii) the how (the used technology); (iii) the where (the context in which the product is used) and finally (iv) the wearability issues connected to the role of technology in human body changing and perception

Mathematical model predicting the heat and power dissipated in an electro-conductive contact in a hybrid woven fabric

Electro-conductive (EC) yarns can be woven into a hybrid fabric to enable electrical current to flow through the fabric from one component A to another component B. These hybrid fabrics form the bases of woven e-textiles. However, at the crossing point of an EC yarn in warp and in weft direction, there is a contact resistance and thus generation of heat may occur in this area. Both phenomena are inseparable: if the contact resistance in the EC contact increases, the generated heat will increase as well. Predicting this electrical and thermal behavior of EC contacts in hybrid woven fabrics with stainless steel yarns is possible with a mathematical model based on the behavior of a metal oxide varistor (MOV). This paper will discuss in detail how this can be achieved

Flexible fiber batteries for applications in smart textiles

Here we discuss two alternative approaches for building flexible batteries for applications in smart textiles. The first approach uses well-studied inorganic electrochemistry (Al-NaOCl galvanic cell) and innovative packaging in order to produce batteries in a slender and flexible fiber form that can be further weaved directly into the textiles. During fabrication process the battery electrodes are co-drawn within a microstructured polymer fiber, which is later filled with liquid electrolyte. The second approach describes Li-ion chemistry within solid polymer electrolytes that are used to build a fully solid and soft rechargeable battery that can be furthermore stitched onto a textile, or integrated as stripes during weaving process