Study on the bagging behavior of knitted fabrics by shape memory polyurethane fiber

The shape memory polyurethane (SMPU) fabrics were knitted with different SMPU fiber contents for the investigation of its bagging behaviour in this paper. The bagging deformation and recovery of these SMPU-knitted fabrics were determined at different temperatures to evaluate its temperature sensitivity. Our experimental results show that the bagging behavior of the SMPU-knitted fabrics is highly correlated with the amount of SMPU fibers knitted inside the SMPU fabrics. The switching temperature of the SMPU-knitted fabrics is found to be above the phase transfer temperature of SMPU. A comparison between Lycra and SMPU-knitted fabrics is also conducted to validate the shape memory bagging behavior of SMPU-knitted fabrics.