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UPDATES TECHNICAL TEXTILES
On The News Beat
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RESEARCH
UBC team working on de-wrinkling textile composites
Professor Abbas Milani( right) and graduate student Armin Rashidi using 3D scanning equipment to analyse textile composites. Pic courtesy: UBC
Scientists at the University of British Columbia( UBC) are working on de-wrinkling methods for textile composites. Abbas Milani, a professor in UBC Okanagan’ s School of Engineering, explains a simple wrinkle in the manufacturing process can significantly alter the end product— sometimes diminishing its strength by 50 per cent. To iron out the problem, researchers at UBC’ s Composite Research Network-Okanagan have investigated several de-wrinkling methods and have discovered that they can improve their effectiveness by pulling the materials in two directions simultaneously during the manufacturing process. They did this by creating a custom-made biaxial fixture— a clamp that stretches the textile taught and removes unwanted bumps and folds.
The research included stretching the material and then using specialised image processing and 3D scanning to analyse the required forces and its impact on the wrinkling and dewrinkling of the material.
The research, recently published in the Materials & Design journal, was partially funded by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council.
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Chinese scientists build silk devices for skull surgery use
Researchers at a Shanghai laboratory have transformed silk into screws to stabilise skull bones during brain surgery. They extracted silk proteins from the cocoons of the Bombyx mori silkworm and converted those into fixing devices like screws and linking stripes. After animal trials, the devices’ properties like strength and toughness have been improved.
Led by Mao Ying, vice president of the Fudan University’ s affiliated Huashan Hospital, and Tao Hu, researcher of
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Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, the research results were published in a recent issue of‘ Advanced Healthcare Materials’ journal.
“ Compared with metal or chemical materials, silk devices have outstanding biocompatibility that induces no foreign-body reaction, and controlled degradation without generating hazardous residues,” said Hu.
The devices are likely to complete clinical trials within the next five years.
AMRC comes up with highpressure RTM system
Members of AMRC’ s Composite Centre and KraussMaffei in front of bespoke KraussMaffei RimStar Compact HP-RTM. Pic courtesy: AMRC
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The Composite Centre at the University of Sheffield’ s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre( AMRC) has come up with a unique high-pressure Resin Transfer Moulding( RTM) and composite press facility to host collaborative research and development projects with manufacturers from the composites industry.
The bespoke KraussMaffei RimStar Compact is the most advanced highpressure RTM system operational within a UK research institution. The facility is a world first in terms of its size, capabilities and the level of monitoring and control it can provide the AMRC Composite Centre. The facility is being used for research into novel composite technologies.
SMART TEXTILES
CREOL produces user-controlled colour-changing fabric
CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida( UCF), has produced the firstever, active user-controlled colourchanging fabric which allows the user / wearer to change the colour or pattern of the fabric through smartphone. The colour change differs from previous“ colour-changing” fabrics, which contain LEDs to emit light.
Instead, CREOL’ s ChroMorphous technology, developed by a team
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of UCF scientists, enables a never-before-seen capability: usercontrolled, dynamic colour and pattern change in large woven fabrics and cut-and-sewn textile products. Each thread woven into the fabric incorporates within it a thin metal micro-wire. An electric current flows through the micro-wires, thus slightly raising the thread’ s temperature. Special pigments embedded in the thread then respond to this modification of temperature by changing its colour.
AWARDS
Michael Hauschild bags 2018 Edana LCA award
Michael Hauschild has bagged the 2018 Edana LCA( Life Cycle Assessment) Life Time Achievement award. The award was presented at the 28th annual conference of SETAC, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, in Rome, Italy.
The award was granted in recognition of Hauschild’ s 25-year body of work in the field of LCA at the Technical University of Denmark( DTU). Michael made lasting contributions in the areas of ecotoxicity in LCA, the assessment of the social sustainability dimension in a life cycle perspective and, more recently, the introduction of an absolute sustainability perspective into LCA.
APPOINTMENTS
Burberry Materials Future Research Group names new chair
The Burberry Foundation and Royal College of Art based in London has named Sharon Baurley as professor of design and materials and chair of the Burberry Material Futures Research Group. The Burberry Group is the first explicit‘ STEAM’( Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) research initiative at an art and design university.
Informed by her industryfocused experience, ranging from smart materials to the impact of new technologies on the future of manufacturing, Professor Baurley will define the research agenda of the Group. She will also lead the commercial and practical application of the outcomes through collaboration with industry partners.
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