This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Web of Science (5) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Laxminarayana, K. Articles by Jalili, N. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Functional Nanotube-based Textiles: Pathway to Next Generation Fabrics with Enhanced Sensing Capabilities

Smart Structures and Nanoelectromechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634-0921, U.S.A.

Nader Jalili

Smart Structures and Nanoelectromechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29634-0921, U.S.A., jalili{at}clemson.edu

With a surge in technological advancements and the needs of diverse communities such as consumers, military and navy, the textile industry is shifting its focus to fabrication of next-generation textiles that not only meet the basic conventional requirements, but also serve a host of other functions. In this pursuit of fabricating next-generation textiles, called here e-textiles (electronic textiles), a novel technique is presented to produce nanocomposite fabrics made from carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with enhanced sensing capabilities. Catering to the ever increasing demand of improved sensors, this work discusses the electrospinning fabrication scheme that has been employed to develop novel CNT-based piezoelectric strain sensors. The resulting sensors have been characterized by performing structural vibration experiments to evaluate their strain-sensing performance. When these new CNT-based piezopolymer composites are electrospun into smart fabrics, the strain-sensing ability (as measured by voltage across the sensor) is increased by a dramatic 35 times, from 2.4 to 84.5 mV for 0.05 wt% of the nanotubes. The dominant mechanism responsible for such improvement is found to be the alignment of dipoles in the piezoelectric material. Such alignment is mainly attributed due to ability of the electrospinning process to generate very thin fibers from polymer-nanotube solution. The direct and reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy in the proposed sensors can create a platform for developing next-generation smart fabric with applications in membrane structures, distributed shape modulation and energy harvesting.

Textile Research Journal, Vol. 75, No. 9, 670-680 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0040517505059330


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?