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2010
Conference Paper
Titel
New thermal adaptive cloth using 3D woven fabrics with seamless integrated tubes
Abstract
An effective and proven way to manufacture thermal adaptive cloth is to integrate tubes for hot or cold media into a fabric by sewing. However, this method requires an extensive amount of manual work, because tubes and fabric are manufactured separately and have been sewn together by hand later. This paper presents a new approach to enable the manufacture and integration of tubes into a fabric using 3D weaving and automated machines instead of manual work. A multi-layer fabric woven with a Jacquard machine realizes a 3D fabric construction with integrated and seamless woven tubes in a one-step process. Paths of the tubes are generated by the so-called FracTherm® algorithm which has originally been developed at Fraunhofer ISE in order to develop fractal-like channel designs for solar thermal absorbers with uniform flow distribution and low pressure drop. After weaving a cost effective finishing of the woven structure by conventional finishing processes tightens the woven tubes to heating or cooling media like air, water or liquid chemicals. As an application of this new technology, a thermal active vest will be presented. This research work is an example for a successful combination of 3D textiles with smart textiles.