The application of additive manufacturing, well known as 3D printing, in textile industry is not more totally new. It allows is giving significant increase of the product variety, production stages reduction, widens the application areas of textiles, customization of design and properties of products according to the type of applications requirement. This paper presents a review of the current state-of-the-art, related to complete process of additive manufacturing. Beginning with the design tools, the classical machinery building computer-aided design (CAD) software, the novel non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) based software and parametric created models are reported. Short overview of the materials demonstrates that in this area few thermoplastic materials become standards and currently a lot of research for the application of new materials is going. Three types of 3D printing, depending on the relation to textiles, are identified and reported from the literature—3D printing on textiles, 3D printing of flexible structures and 3D printing with flexible materials. Several applications with all these methods are reported and finally the main advantages and disadvantages of the 3D printing in relation to textile industry are given.

Using a lapped seam, PVC-coated hybrid textiles with uniform thickness were bonded by continuous ultrasonic welding and conventional joining method with the help of hot air tape welding technique for weather protection purposes. Three fundamental sewing parameters at two distinct levels and three primary welding parameters at three levels based on 6 and 12 mm welding widths were used. To consider the effect of welding and sewing parameters on seam strength, full factorial designs of experiments were designed, fabricated, and tested. The thermal behavior and possibility of chemical conversion in the welding zone under the influence of ultrasonic vibrations were examined. Variation in width of heat-affected zone of weld seam was measured. The seam strength of ultrasonic weld seam compared with that of conventional seams, and superior seam strength yielding parametric levels were assessed. The parametric influence of both joining techniques on seam quality and their tendencies in the relationship were analyzed statistically. The weld seam strength (1256.392 and 2116.93 N/50 mm) was optimized numerically and identified its trend with the variation of the weld seam. The discovered relationship led to the conclusion that the variation in the weld seam can be used to estimate the tensile strength of the weld seam through the developed effective numerical model as a non-destructive testing method, and its outcome was successful as a destructive testing method. The result shows that the ultrasonic weld seam provided a higher tensile strength ( > 75%) than the conventional seam for both evaluated welding widths and obtained statistically significant results.

A study of polyvinylchloride-coated woven polyester fabric welding potential was conducted using continuous ultrasonic welding machines. The effect of cooling air, anvil wheel status, anvil wheel width, material surface contact, and welding gap on seam strength was studied. Three main welding parameters with different levels were selected based on 5 and 10 mm welding widths using old and new anvil wheels with and without cooling air. A lapped type of seam was applied under full factorial design. A microstructure was captured to examine the formation of welding joints, and seam tensile properties were determined. Comparative analysis of comparable welding parameters was analyzed for a gap against pressure and amplitude against power. The actual weld phenomenon was also analyzed based on the recorded machine parameters. The results showed that auxiliary parameters had a significant effect on seam strength. A microscopic image of a welded seam indicated that cooling air reduced the number and size of holes produced. Weld seam with controlled pressure or power provided higher seam strength than that of the controlled gap or amplitude. The actual phenomenon of welding parameters was important to evaluate weld seam quality, whereby the obtained results indicated good quality at lower power and pressure.

Stab-protective clothing is the most important component of safety equipment and it helps to save the lives of its wearers; therefore, it is designed to resist knife, nail, or needle attacks, especially to the upper body. In this paper, the essential requirements for stab-resistant armor are investigated based on an in-depth review of previous research and prototype test results. The combination of protection and comfort in armor vests is a particularly challenging task. Review of the state of the art technology responsible for the manufacture of stab-resistant clothes has revealed that their design and development should encompass the elements of comfort, freedom of movement, permeability, absorption, evaporation, and weight reductions to ensure excellent ergonomics and high wear comfort. The design as well as the production, weight, thickness, material types and properties, and the arrangement of scales determine the level of protection and comfort offered by stab-resistant vests. Currently, the production of stab-proof gear-based 3D printing technology is evaluated, using lightweight materials (aramid) in the form of segmented scales inspired by nature. As the protection performance and wear comfort of stab-proof gear is enhanced, the willingness of security, control, transport, custom, and correction officers to wear them can be significantly increased in an endeavor to ensure that fatal injuries will decrease significantly.

A stab resistant vest is a reinforced piece of body armour designed to resist knife or needle attacks of different energy levels specifically to the upper part of the body (chest and abdomen) to save lives. The majority of armours limit several comfort parameters, such as free locomotion, respiration, flexibility and light weight, which determine efficient use by wearers and their willingness to wear. Currently available armours are usually made of a single plate, and although often segmentation is used with just a few but still quite large pieces, the materials are compact and bulky to wear. In this study, stab protective armor elements (scale-like elements) of 3 mm thickness and 50 mm diameter were designed, produced (3D printed) and tested for performance. Aramid fibre was used for its strength, durability and process ability to develop protection elements at unidirectional and multidirectional filling angles during 3D printing. The specimens were tested according to VPAM KDIW 2004. The specimens designed and developed with multidirectional filling angles of aramid resist the puncturing energy level K1 (25 J) with a penetration depth less than the maximum allowed for the K1 energy level by VPAM. These specimens showed a high protection level of relative small thickness (3 mm) and light weight (6.57 grams for the estimated area A ≈ 1963.5 mm2) as compared to the currently certified armors for K1 (for example, the aluminum mass is 13.33 grams for 2 mm thickness and 50 mm diameter).