Rapid manufactured textiles

Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is increasingly becoming a viable manufacturing process due to dramatic advantages that are achievable in the area of design complexity. Through the exploration of the design freedom afforded by RM, this paper introduces the concept and novel research area of RM textiles. The paper highlights the design and manufacturing possibilities applied to textiles when considering additive manufacturing techniques, the current limitations of conventional Computer Aided Design (CAD) software when creating RM textile three-dimensional (3D) data and the potential use of dedicated 'textile CAD'. A methodology for the generation of 3D conformal RM textile articles is presented in addition to the initial investigation of 'efficient manufacture' by the collapsing of RM textile structures into their lowest potential energy state. The work concludes that through the utilization of RM it is entirely possible to manufacture a structure that incorporates drape and free movement properties directly comparable with conventional textiles.