Journal of Textile Science & Engineering

Auxetic textiles comprise a class of extraordinary materials that increase in size when stretched and are being considered in many applications of technical textiles. Sustained efforts to fabricate auxetic fabric structures are sparse and the use of auxetic materials has been limited because of problems with deploying them in their fabricated forms. Auxetic materials based on fibers and fabrics may be able to circumvent these and other limitations. Thus, the use of auxetic fibers in an engineered textile structure can be facilitated by the development of cost effective, productive processes in which large quantities of textile materials exhibit the very unusual, interesting and useful property of becoming wider when stretched and thinner when compressed. Such a process will revolutionize the technical textiles and protective clothing industry. Our thrust in this research is to combine our knowledge of geometry and fabric structural characteristics to engineer auxetic textiles and to determine the properties of such auxetic textile fabrics. Our efforts to produce auxetic knit structures from non-auxetic yarns are described in this paper.

According to the property study of the polyamide 6 and polyester chips, the process parameters have been confirmed to prepare the spunbonded PA6/PET segmentation bicomponent fiber. Through the cross section study, it was found that the cross section structure was deeply affected by the spinning pressure and temperature of the melt mass. Meanwhile the drawing parameters had important influence on the fineness and strength of the fiber.

Molecular self-assembly has been intensively investigated for “bottom-up” nanofabrication in recent years. A strategy that offers simple routes to functional nano-scale objects directly from templates through molecular self- assembly may lead to the development of new advanced materials for nanotechnology. Electrospun nanofibers can be good templates for manipulating molecular self-assembly by virtue of their nanometer confinement effect and the formulation of their components into a composite material. One-dimensional nanofiber composites of hydrophilic polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and chitosan (CS) were successfully prepared through an elevated temperature electrospinning process. Scanning electron and transmission electron microscopy observations indicated that the fibers have an average diameter of 77 ± 11 nm with a homogeneous inner structure. Differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction results demonstrated that PVP and CS were in an amorphous state in the nanofibers, indicating they were mixed on the molecular scale. IR spectra revealed that second-order hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions played a fundamental role in promoting the structural homogeneity of the amorphous nanofiber composites. CS nanoparticles of about 10 nm in diameter are spontaneously self-assembled in situ when the nanofibers are added to water. Through a combination of “top-down” electrospinning and a “bottom-up” molecular self-assembly, a brand-new process has been developed for preparing polymer nanoparticles in situ .

This research studies the effect of softener treatment on plain jersey fabrics properties made of cotton and spandex yarn. Samples with 100% cotton yarns, spandex yarns in alternating courses (half plating) and spandex yarns in every courses (full plating) were produced on a circular knitting machine where the two latter cases were produced at five different levels of spandex extension. After dyeing process, fabrics were treated with fabric softener using two softener types (cationic and silicon) and all type two concentrations (3%, 6%) to evaluate the most appropriate softener type and concentration on fabric friction force, sewing needle penetration force and weight loss % under different level of spandex extension. Results showed that silicon softener treatment results in high decreases in fabric sewing needle penetrating force, friction force and while treatment with cationic softener results in high decreases in weight loss % for 100% cotton, half and full plating fabrics.