Functional Textiles and Applications

Textile materials are contributing to many applications, even in areas where fibers might not immediately be expected such as in personal protective equipment, light-weight structural materials, wearable electronics or biomedical products. Optimization of the textiles for these applications, as well as development of new functional textile applications, are important goals for CTSE. Research happens on different levels, such as the functionalization of fibers (for example to make them antimicrobial), the design of functional textile structures (for example to create hybrid hydrophilic/hydrophobic structures that can guide liquid away from the source), or even to create wearable electronics entirely made from textiles (for example a protective vest with built-in radio antenna). The group has a long history in so-called smart textiles in which smart electronics are combined with textile materials to create all kinds of useful applications and provide a new level of user-interaction that only textiles can provide. A glossary of some of our current research topics is given below.

Electrospinning as a new coating technology for various functional applications

Damage resistant composites, fluor-free waterproofing, electrochemical water purification are just several examples of applications that benefit from a new coating technology based on electrospun nanofibers.

Delamination and impact resistant composite materials using nanofiber toughening veils

Unbreakable composites using nanofibers

Adding tough polymer nanofibers alongside glass or carbon fibers greatly increases the damage resistance of composite materials.

Dry EEG textrodes for monitoring brain activity without shaving the head

Hook fabric textrodes collect EEG signals of comparable quality to dry Ag/AgCl and wet gold cup electrodes on a hairy scalp.

Application of textile-based electrodes for ECG monitoring in animals

This work will focus on the development of silver-based textile electrodes to measure a dog's and horse's ECG signals and contrast the results with those obtained using gelled standard AG/AgCl electrodes.

Continuous fiber reinforced Additive Manufacturing

In-house development and characterization of Additive manufacturing technologies for the production of continuous fiber reinforced 3D printed thermoplastic composites allows for the production of intricate, small scale load bearing parts.

Novel textile-based anatomically realistic head phantom

A long-lasting textile head phantom has been created for EEG electrode validation.

Developing a wearable system for telemetric ECG monitoring

In this work, a wearable ECG monitoring system will be developed by integrating electrodes to develop telemetric ECG monitoring.

Comfort of textiles and garments

Balancing comfort and safety in personal protective clothing

Comfort plays an essential part in Personal Protective Clothing. This research focuses on combining selected objective and subjective tests to develop a protocol for accurate assessment of clothing comfort.