Pakistan lags behind in technical textile

This paper highlights and demonstrates the technical and economical impact of technical textiles in the industrially developed countries and their future contribution to the development of economics of newly developing countries, such as China, South East Asia, and North Africa etc. Pakistan still lags behind in technical textile products as neither the government nor the textile industry has made any serious efforts towards synchronizing textile products with the emerging needs of the world market by developing higher value-added products. Although the textile sector is the backbone of Pakistan’s economy, the Government as well as the textile industry has kept their focus on conventional textiles, ignoring technical textiles and knowledge-based products. A special focus is placed on the application of technical textiles related automotive, medical, construction/civil engineering and sportswear’s fields.

Nonlinear finite element analysis of reinforced concrete beams strengthened with textile fine grained mortar

Nowadays, there was an increasing need of repairing and upgrading the reinforced concrete (RC) structure due to the deterioration of the structure. The fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) was commonly used for structural retrofitting purposes. However, owing to the debonding of the FRP from the concrete substrate and high cost of epoxy, it was gradually replaced with textile fine grained mortar (TFGM) nowadays. The TFGM system has been widely used in the construction field nowadays to repair the structure. Our study focus on the strain performances of the concrete surface, steel reinforcement and the textile itself. There were many proven experimental results showing that the TFGM was more effective than the other strengthening method such as FRP plate method. The experimental work done by previous researcher on investigation of strain performances of the concrete surface, steel reinforcement and the textile itself which consists of eleven (11) RC beams with dimension 150 x 200 x 2500 mm. The RC beams were strengthened with FGM and TFGM with 4 layers. The investigation continued with the finite element (FE) strain performance analysis with using Advanced Tool for Engineering Nonlinear Analysis (ATENA) software. The strain of the concrete surface, steel reinforcement and the textile were measured at a mid-point of RC beam. Then, the results of the finite element analysis software ATENA compared against the experimental results. The strain performances of the concrete and steel reinforcement improved noticeably when the number of layers of textile reinforcement used increased

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

Learning cloth manipulation with demonstrations

Recent advances in Deep Reinforcement learning and computational capabilities of GPUs have led to variety of research being conducted in the learning side of robotics. The main aim being that of making autonomous robots that are capable of learning how to solve a task on their own with minimal requirement for engineering on the planning, vision, or control side. Efforts have been made to learn the manipulation of rigid objects through the help of human demonstrations, specifically in the tasks such as stacking of multiple blocks on top of each other, inserting a pin into a hole, etc. These Deep RL algorithms successfully learn how to complete a task involving the manipulation of rigid objects, but autonomous manipulation of textile objects such as clothes through Deep RL algorithms is still not being studied in the community. The main objectives of this work involve, 1) implementing the state of the art Deep RL algorithms for rigid object manipulation and getting a deep understanding of the working of these various algorithms, 2) Creating an open-source simulation environment for simulating textile objects such as clothes, 3) Designing Deep RL algorithms for learning autonomous manipulation of textile objects through demonstrations.Peer ReviewedPreprin

Advancements in on-line monitoring and control of parameters in knitting and sewing processes

This paper presents a summary of the developments in process control in textile processes at the University of Minho, by a multidisciplinary research group involving three different departments (Textile, lectronic and Mechanical Engineering). The studies target the automatic process parameter monitoring and control in the areas of industrial sewing and knitting.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)

Textiles as Material Gestalt: Cloth as a Catalyst in the Co-designing Process

Textiles is the common language within Emotional Fit, a collaborative research project investigating a person-centred, sustainable approach to fashion for an ageing female demographic (55+). Through the co-designing of a collection of research tools, textiles have acted as a material gestalt for exploring our research participants' identities by tracing their embodied knowledge of fashionable dress. The methodology merges Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, co-design and a simultaneous approach to textile and garment design. Based on an enhanced understanding of our participants textile preferences, particular fabric qualities have catalysed silhouettes, through live draping and geometric pattern cutting to accommodate multiple body shapes and customisation. Printedtextiles have also been digitally crafted in response to the contours of the garment and body and personal narratives of wear. Sensorial and tactile interactions have informed the engineering and scaling of patterns within zero-waste volumes. The article considers the functional and aesthetic role of textiles

Guide for smart practices to support innovation in smart textiles

Smart Textiles for STEM training (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math’s) is an Erasmus+ project aiming to bridge Textile Companies with the Education sector via Smart Textiles Innovation and Training. Industries have been surveyed to analyze the needs for new jobs and skills in Smart textiles, contributing to improve the links with VET Schools training and closing the gap between industry and education. During the project a number of smart textiles examples and prototypes are worked to be transferred to Schools and used by students and teachers, aiming to foster STEM training. This paper presents the results of the survey applied to selected textile companies on Technical and Smart Textiles, based on data collected from 63 textile enterprises in Romania, Belgium, Slovenia, Portugal and Czech Republic. The survey identifies existing opportunities for producing smart textiles in enterprises and forecasting expected occupations and work profiles for young trainees. The guide for smart practices presents the results of this survey and aims to transfer smart practices from enterprises to Vocational Education and Training (VET) schools and young students. Providing real life prototypes and multi-disciplinary working activities on smart textiles will make textile occupations more attractive to young students, and will improve knowledge, skills and employability of VET students in STEM related fields

Fashion Design:Facilitating Generational Change

There is greater need for interrogation of the modus operandi of the fashion and textile design industries, but the contention in this article is there is the same need for an interrogation of sustainability, ethics, diversity and inclusion as core elements of fashion and textile design education. Not in a top-down model of business development rather, a middle-out centrally connected manner: a human centred model of leadership. A debate about what this means is required, if a new model is to be universally adopted by design practitioners and by the fashion design and textile engineering industries and education, internationally and in general

Subcontracting dynamics and economic development: A study on textile and engineering industries

Recent studies on small and medium sized establishments emphasize the importance of networking and regional clusters for industrial development. This study is focused on an important form of cooperation between firms: subcontracting relationship. Our aim is to estimate the determinants of subcontracting in Turkish textile and engineering industries, and to derive policy implications of our estimates. We estimate subcontract offering and subcontract receiving models for both industries by using panel data on all establishments employing 25 or more workers in the period 1988-97. Our findings show that short-term/unequal relationship exists between parent firms and subcontractors in the textile industry whereas subcontracting relationships in the engineering industry are established between "similar", relatively advanced firms that have complementary assets and technologies.Subcontracting, firm cooperation, vertical integration