Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design

Chhivhung Eng

Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design Design and Merchandising

Faculty Mentor: Prof. Genevieve Dion

Fashion Design

Knit Structure Reference Guide

Functional fabrics, which makes up smart garments, refers to textile that have been engineered to perform tasks that goes beyond traditional textile. Smart garments doubles as a medical device that can monitor the user’s heartbeat, medical condition, or performs other tasks deemed useful to the user. The Center for Functional Fabrics is a place where different disciplines work together to produce innovative textiles. An important factor in developing these textiles, is to understand their properties and how they are fabricated. For example, knit structures which make up a textile, not only contribute to the overall aesthetic of the garment, they also play a major role in the functionality and comfort of the garment. Certain structures are known to have qualities that contribute to its flammability, wicking, and many other characteristics. To learn more about knit structures and their properties, I surveyed research papers and text books and compiled the findings in a reference guide. By understanding the unique traits of each knit structure, we are able to make educated decisions on how to construct garments to maximize its design, comfort, performance and functionality.

Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design

Bright Hsu

College of Engineering Computer Engineering

Faculty Mentor: Prof. Genevieve Dion Fashion Design

Richard Valleyy Co-Mentor

Building lab scale equipment for Functional Fabric prototyping

Functional fabrics are textiles with intrinsic functionality. They change color, store energy and sense touch and motion using specialized fibers and yarns. These fibers and yarns use experimental materials not available in large quantities. Traditional yarn manufacturing machinery is often too large to produce small volumes and no such smallscale equipment exists. To fill this gap, we created a series of small, precision winders that can collect delicate yarns in small quantities. The winder’s hardware was modeled and simulated in Autodesk Inventor. The control and user interface were created using the Arduino and Processing IDEs. The device is modular and extensible. Future work involves incorporating yarn twisting and wrapping hardware and further UI development.