Search

Two sets of compound woven fabrics containing three layers of simple woven fabrics were manufactured (five samples made of cotton yarns and five samples with one-third hybrid cotton/silver yarns). The thermal resistance and water vapor permeability of all the fabrics were measured and compared. It should be noted that the small dissimilarity in the thickness of the manufactured fabrics was due to the movement of the yarns through the thickness in the relaxing state of the fabrics. However, they were designed in a way to have the same thickness on the weaving loom. The results stated that the thermal resistance of asymmetric fabrics for both sets of fabrics (with and without silver) was different regarding which exterior face (face or back) was in contact with the hot plate (20°C). It should be noted that the fabric is not symmetric through its thickness due to the dissimilarity of weave pattern of the layers or the orientation of silver yarns. It affirms that the internal voids of each ply (which is correlated to the wave pattern) play a significant role in thermal resistance of the manufactured compound woven fabrics. As a result, the asymmetry of a compound woven fabric throughout the thickness makes it a potential fabric to be applied as double-face fabric for different climate conditions as the order of the layers changed the thermal resistance of the compound fabric due to the porosity of each ply. Furthermore, a reduction was observed in thermal resistance for the fabrics with silver presence (~40%) while the other parameters remained unchanged (e.g. yarn density, fabric structure, and fabric porosity). The reason is correlated to the high conductivity of silver as conductive materials improve the heat transfer of the fabrics. Moreover, the influence of silver presence on water vapor permeability was not significant although the water vapor permeability was slightly increased for the fabrics having silver in their structures.

The material forming capability becomes one of the most important characteristic of textile performance in the manufacturing of three-dimensional (3D) components to fit a 3D surface in various technical applications. In this study, different forming characteristics of 3D warp interlock fabrics in dry fabric condition were investigated. 3D warp interlock architecture with different areal density from same para-aramid yarn with a linear density of 168dtex were systematically designed and produced on automatic dobby loom with standard atmospheric conditions. The approach utilizes a low speed forming process with a predefined hemispherical shape of punch for the analysis of different forming behaviour of the fabrics specimen. The same blank-holder pressure was chosen for all the samples for better comparisons. Among several forming properties, some important characteristics have been observed, measured and analysed for a better understanding of the material forming behaviour of the different samples specimen. The research results with independent warp and weft yarn densities show a significant impact on the forming behaviours 3D warp interlock fabric. Moreover, the result of the investigation also will give a better understanding on different forming behaviours of 3D warp interlock fabric with various densities while applying in different textile application including women soft body armour.

One of the challenges in smart textiles is to develop suitable multifunctional materials that can address simultaneously several characteristics such as durability, stretchability, lightweight, and conductivity. Conductive polymers which showed success in different technological fields like polymer solar cells and light emitting diodes are promising in many smart textile applications. In this work, we treated a common polyamide/lycra knitted fabric with PEDOT:PSS for stretchable e-textiles. PEDOT:PSS, with DMSO as a conductivity enhancer and different ratios of water-based polyurethane dispersions as a binder, was applied to the fabric with simple immersion and coating applications. The effect of different application methods and binder ratio on the surface resistance of the fabric was monitored with four point probe electrical surface resistance measurement systems. Samples prepared by immersion technique are more uniform and have higher conductivity than those prepared by a coating technique. SEM images showed that PEDOT:PSS is incorporated into the structure in the immersion method while in the coating it is majorly present on the surface of the fabric. The tensile measurement showed that the acidic PEDOT:PSS and polyurethane dispersion coating has no adverse effect on the tensile strength of the fabric. The coated samples can be stretched up to 700% while still reasonably conductive. The resistance increases only by a small amount when samples were stretched cyclically by stretching 100%. Generally, samples prepared by the immersion method maintained better conductivity while stretching than those by a coating method. The washing fastness of the samples was also assessed.