The course has the aim to give an overview of technical textiles. Materials and technologies will be described with particular emphasis to the latest advances in different fields, such as transportation, construction, medical and industrial applications and many others.
A part of the course will be dedicated to the study of comfort of apparel, with particular attention to sportswear.

By completing this course, the student will be able to identify materials and technologies for specific technical applications of textiles.

A basic knowledge of man-made fibers.

Definition and scope of technical textiles. Milestones in the development of technical textiles. Market overview: worldwide consumption of technical textiles by product type and by application.
Overview of applications: transport (automotive, aeronautic and marine applications), building and geotextiles, filtration (dust collection, solid-liquid separation, nanofibers for ultrafine filtration), agriculture and fishing, packaging, protective and safety products (high chemical resistant fibres, high combustion resistant fibres).
Summary of mechanical properties of textiles: linear density, tensile strength, tenacity, elongation, yield points, modulus, elastic recovery.
High performance fibers.
- Meta-aramid fibers: structure, polymerization, wet-spinning, post-spinning processes, properties, applications.
- Liquid crystal polymers: lyotropic and thermotropic liquid crystals. Dry-jet wet spinning. Para-aramids. Liquid crystal heterocyclic fibres (PBO Zylon, PBT). Liquid crystals aromatic copolyester (Vectran).
- High strength- high modulus polyethylene (Dyneema). Gel spinning. Superdrawing.
- Carbon fibres: PAN-based carbon fibre production and properties. Pitch-based carbon fibres: isotropic pitch and mesophase. Rayon-based carbon fibres. Vapour grown carbon fibres.
- Glass fibres: Time-temperature transformation curves. Fibre glass compositions. Optical fibres.
Composite: use of fibres in composites, mechanical properties of composites: rules of mixtures. Unidirectional fabrics, 0/90°, stitched fabrics, hybrid fabrics. Composites manufacturing technologies: spray lay-up, hand lay-up, resin transfer moulding, vacuum-assisted resin transfer moulding, filament winding, pultrusion, prepreg.
Heat and flame protection: inherently flame retardant fibres (Basofil, Kynol, arimid, modacrylics), chemically modified fibres (intumescent systems, FR finishing of cotton, viscose, wool).
Smart textiles: stimuli-responsive polymers for smart textiles, phase-change materials, shape-memory materials.
Wearable technologies: electronic textiles, conductive polymers, screen printing technique.

Two visits are foreseen: to a laboratory specialised in flame retardancy tests and to a laboratory specialised in comfort assessment of clothing.

Handbook of technical textiles, edited by A.R.Horrocks and S.C. Anand, Woodhead publishing, 2007
Mc Quaid, Extreme textiles, Designing for high performance, Princeton Architectural Press, 2005
Textile in sports, Woodhead publishing, edited by Shishoo, Woodhead publishing, 2005

Written examination.