Wash testing of electronic yarn

Hardy, D.A. ORCID: 0000-0002-6028-7555, Rahemtulla, Z., Satharasinghe, A. ORCID: 0000-0002-7124-8228, Shahidi, A. ORCID: 0000-0002-7780-3122, Oliveira, C. ORCID: 0000-0001-8143-3534, Anastasopoulos, I., Nashed, M.N., Kgatuke, M., Komolafe, A., Torah, R., Tudor, J., Hughes-Riley, T. ORCID: 0000-0001-8020-430X, Beeby, S. and Dias, T. ORCID: 0000-0002-3533-0398, 2020. Wash testing of electronic yarn. Materials, 13 (5): 1228. ISSN 1996-1944

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Abstract

Electronically active yarn (E-yarn) pioneered by the Advanced Textiles Research Group of Nottingham Trent University contains a fine conductive copper wire soldered onto a package die, micro-electro-mechanical systems device or flexible circuit. The die or circuit is then held within a protective polymer packaging (micro-pod) and the ensemble is inserted into a textile sheath, forming a flexible yarn with electronic functionality such as sensing or illumination. It is vital to be able to wash E-yarns, so that the textiles into which they are incorporated can be treated as normal consumer products. The wash durability of E-yarns is summarized in this publication. Wash tests followed a modified version of BS EN ISO 6330:2012 procedure 4N. It was observed that E-yarns containing only a fine multi-strand copper wire survived 25 cycles of machine washing and line drying; and between 5 and 15 cycles of machine washing followed by tumble-drying. Four out of five temperature sensing E-yarns (crafted with thermistors) and single pairs of LEDs within E-yarns functioned correctly after 25 cycles of machine washing and line drying. E-yarns that required larger micro-pods (i.e., 4 mm diameter or 9 mm length) were less resilient to washing. Only one out of five acoustic sensing E-yarns (4 mm diameter micro-pod) operated correctly after 20 cycles of washing with either line drying or tumble-drying. Creating an E-yarn with an embedded flexible circuit populated with components also required a relatively large micro-pod (diameter 0.93 mm, length 9.23 mm). Only one embedded circuit functioned after 25 cycles of washing and line drying. The tests showed that E-yarns are suitable for inclusion in textiles that require washing, with some limitations when larger micro-pods were used. Reduction in the circuit’s size and therefore the size of the micro-pod, may increase wash resilience.

Item Type: Journal article
Publication Title: Materials
Creators: Hardy, D.A., Rahemtulla, Z., Satharasinghe, A., Shahidi, A., Oliveira, C., Anastasopoulos, I., Nashed, M.N., Kgatuke, M., Komolafe, A., Torah, R., Tudor, J., Hughes-Riley, T., Beeby, S. and Dias, T.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 2020
Volume: 13
Number: 5
ISSN: 1996-1944
Identifiers:
NumberType
10.3390/ma13051228DOI
1305407Other
Rights: © 2020 MDPI (Basel, Switzerland). © This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Divisions: Schools > School of Art and Design
Record created by: Linda Sullivan
Date Added: 23 Mar 2020 10:09
Last Modified: 08 Mar 2024 16:23
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/39434

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