4.5 Article

Soft robotic fabric design, fabrication, and thermoregulation evaluation

Journal

TEXTILE RESEARCH JOURNAL
Volume 91, Issue 15-16, Pages 1763-1785

Publisher

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/0040517520985900

Keywords

Thermal comfort; soft robotic; pneumatic actuation; thermoregulation; garment design

Funding

  1. Research Grants Council of Hong Kong [PolyU 252029/19E]
  2. Innovation and Technology Fund of Hong Kong [ITS/093/19]
  3. PolyU-Industry Collaborative Research Project
  4. PolyU GRF Project [1-BE1F]
  5. Shanghai Style Fashion Design & Value Creation Collaborative Innovation Center [X11071904]

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Traditional insulation materials have a constant thermal resistance value, while air-driven thermoregulation fabrics (SRF) provide flexible thermal insulation performance by changing thickness, which is significant in energy saving.
Usually, traditional insulation materials have a constant thermal resistance value that cannot change within the ambient temperature and will decrease as ambient humidity or external stress increases. Humans heavily rely on heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to meet the thermal comfort requirements of their bodies, giving rise to energy waste and global warming. As an infinitely available natural resource, air is one of the most efficient thermal retaining substances known to science. Inspired by soft pneumatic robotics, we propose an architecture for air-driven thermoregulation fabrics called soft robotic fabrics (SRF). By changing the thickness of trapped air layer in fabric system through SRF, wearers could modify garments' thermal insulation performance. A fabrication method is introduced to rapidly manufacture low-cost pneumatic structures using various types of construction and dimensions. With excellent ductility, elasticity, and compression resistance, the thickness of SRF increases by 12 times or more after inflation, and the fabric even can lift an object 270 times heavier than its weight. The excellent deformability can effectively increase stable air layer between clothing and skin. Based on the Predicted Mean Vote-Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied model, the thermoregulation capability of SRF helps HVAC expand the temperature setpoint range by 3-8 times when compared with traditional fabrics, and has far-reaching significance in saving energy.

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