The vision on smart textiles

SYSTEX is a European coordination action that wants to push the breakthrough of intelligent textile systems. In the first two year the project has collected information on ongoing research, products, markets, roadmaps, training and education etc.. This information is available at the project website. The website is the platform for partners and users ranging from students, members, the wide public to companies. SYSTEX organizes training in the form of local and international events and the annual Smart Textiles Saloon. Contribution to policy building is an important task of SYSTEX. The information collected in the first phase has been analysed and a workshop has led to a vision paper. Further analysis will be made using the complexity theories. A roadmap should evolve from this. The paper will explain about SYSTEX. A demonstration will be given on the webbased platform. The potential impact of smart textiles will be illustrated based on the vision paper and the parts of the roadmap that are already available. The principles of complexity models will be explained

Biotechnological modification and functionalisation of polyester surfaces

Synthetic fibers form an important part of the textile industry, the production of polyester alone surpassing that of cotton. A disadvantage of synthetic fibers is their low hydrophilicity. Polyester fibers are particularly hydrophobic. This affects the processability and functionalisation of the fibers. A relatively new and promising alternative is the use of enzymes in surface modification of synthetic fibers. Synthetic materials have generally been considered resistant to biological degradation; recent developments at different research groups demonstrate that enzymes are very well capable of hydrolysing synthetic materials

Towards numerical simulation of yarn insertion on air-jet weaving looms

In this research a structural solver and flow solver are coupled to simulate the motion of a nylon yarn as it is launched into the atmosphere by a main nozzle of an air-jet weaving loom. The high-speed air flow, large displacements of the yarn, 3D-nature of the problem and the contact between yarn and nozzle wall pose substantial challenges to both solvers. Furthermore, the large displacements necessitate a two-way coupling which drastically increases the computational time required. In fluid-structure interaction simulations, the flexible structure is often modelled using continuum elements. However, in this work, the use of beam theory to model the yarn is investigated. Switching to beam theory allows reducing the computational time required for the structural solver, but requires adaptations to the fluid-structure interaction code so that forces are projected onto the centreline and centreline displacements are converted into 3D displacements of the surface nodes. To validate the use of beam elements, a structural simulation is performed in which a section of the yarn is mechanically pulled through the main nozzle. Afterwards the correct functioning of the beam elements is tested by performing a fluid-structure interaction simulation on a 3D, cantilevered beam in cross-flow. Finally, a simulation is performed in which a nylon yarn (diameter 0.72 mm) is unwound by the main nozzle air flow (5 bar gauge) and launched into the atmosphere. The gain in computational time by switching to beam elements is evaluated

Textile elements for car seat to improve user’s driving comfort

The main motive for this research is the desire for the improvement of the automotive seat occupant’s comfort by designing a heating mat prototype made with distance knitting technology with heating elements. In this study, the following design steps were undertaken: preparation of the trajectories of heating cables, calculating the resistance needed to obtain the estimated power of the whole mat, testing of available electroconductive yarns to assign the most suitable yarn to a specific design, preparation and testing of five heating mat prototypes with three various trajectories of the heating element. All samples were evaluated with the same criteria in order to find the most promising design. After all experiments, a prototype with stainless-steel BekaertVR VN 12.2 coated yarn as a heating element, showed the best performance, especially in combination with distance knitted fabric thanks to its internal construction. This work demonstrates that a three-dimensional distance knitted fabric with a heating element introduced into its structure will ensure the physiological sitting comfort. After further subsequent studies, the proposed method can be adapted for industrialisation by using warp knitting machines, thus improving the quality and durability of the heating mat

Fingertip skin models for analysis of the haptic perception of textiles

This paper presents finite element models of the fingertip skin which have been created to simulate the contact of textile objects with the skin to gain a better understanding of the perception of textiles through the skin, the so-called hand of textiles. Many objective and subjective techniques have already been developed for analysing the hand of textiles; however, none of them provide exact overall information concerning the sensation of textiles through the skin. As the human skin is a complex heterogeneous hyperelastic body composed of many particles, some simplifications had to be made at the early stage of building the models; however, their utilitarian value was maintained. The models relate only to mechanical loading of the skin. They predict a low deformation of the fingertip skin under the pressure of virtual heterogeneous material: acrylic, coarse wool, and steel

NO BUG: biobased mosquitoes repellent personal protective equipment (PPE)

In tropical regions (South America, Asia and Africa) diseases like malaria and dengue cause many deaths. These diseases are transmitted through mosquitoes bites (Anopheles sp. and Aedes aegypti respectively). The current practice to protect against transmission of these diseases is by use of mosquito repellents. Common mosquito repellents used today are synthetic in nature and are suspected or have been proved to be harmful to the user and environment (e.g. DEET, DDT, dimethylphylphthalate, parathion etc). This research work is part of the FP7 No-Bug project (Novel release system and bio-based utilities for insect repellent textiles). The main interest of the project is personal protective textiles against insects (mosquitoes) for application not only in tropical areas where vector borne diseases are a major threat to the public health but also in European countries where the presence of mosquitoes can be nuisance. To solve the problems associated with the synthetic repellents, novel bio-repellents will be identified and an innovative slow release system established. Our aim is to develop a novel insect repellent personal protective equipment to be used by professional travelers (education, business, research, volunteers, missionary and peace corps) when they travel for duty in mosquito prone areas. The target mosquitoes are Anopheles stephensi which cause malaria and Aedes aegypti that transmit dengue