This paper describes an intensity-based notched polymer optical fiber (POF) fabric strain sensor and its application in human respiration monitoring. A mechanical analysis illustrates geometrical profiles of constrained fiber loops on the fabric substrate. V-shaped notches are made by laser ablation on the sides of the POFs. The effects of loop parameters and processing conditions on the sensing performance are investigated. The experimental results show that the fabric sensor is more sensitive to strain with notches on the outer side of the loops, a small radius of the loops and a low scanning speed of laser. This fabric sensor exhibits a large measurable strain range of up to 21%. The achieved strain sensitivity is 3.77. The temperature and relative humidity have little effect on strain sensitivity between 0℃ and 60℃. A belt has been fabricated by integrating the fabric sensor for monitoring human respiration. The evaluation trials show a strong correlation between the belt system and a clinic monitor.

No abstract

Recently, researchers have become interested in exploring applications of rechargeable battery storage technology in different disciplines, which can help our daily life, such as textile-based supercapacitors. This paper briefly describes this development and classification of supercapacitors. Besides, various types of materials which are commonly used to prepare supercapacitors, such as carbons, metal oxides, alkaline earth metal salts and polymers, are introduced. Moreover, applications and methodology to prepare textile materials with supercapacitors are described. Finally, the commonly used non-destructive measuring methods for textile-based supercapacitors are also introduced.

A metal layer, used as a current collector layer for a textile-based supercapacitor (SC), was prepared on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fabrics using wet chemical methods. By integrating this additional current collector layer into the SC structure, the carbon-nanotube (CNT)-based SC showed an improved capacitive performance. The specific capacitances of the CNT/Cu/PET SC and CNT/Au/PET SC were 4.312 Â 10 À3 F cm À2 and 3.683 Â 10 À3 F cm À2 respectively, about 60 times larger than that obtained from the CNT/PET SC without the metal collector layer. On the other hand, the energy densities of these CNT-based SCs with metal layers were found to be $50 fold increased as compared to the CNT/ PET SC. Similarly, the power densities of these two SCs with current collector layers were two orders of magnitude larger than that of CNT/PET SC. High flexibility was also demonstrated in these two metallayered SCs. For the durability measurement, the CNT/Au/PET SC showed a stable performance, with its specific capacitance maintained at about 89% of its initial value after 2500 charge-discharge cycles.However, the CNT/Cu/PET SC only showed a relatively short-term stability, as its specific capacitance dropped to 12% of its initial value after 2500 charge-discharge cycles. In order to further improve its capacitive performance, polyaniline (PANI) was deposited on the CNT/Au/PET SC surface using a cyclic voltammetric deposition method. A specific capacitance of 0.103 F cm À2 , about 30 times larger than that of the CNT/Au/PET SC, was obtained in the PANI/CNT/Au/PET SC which also showed good flexibility as well as high stability performance, with only 11% drop after 2500 charge-discharge cycles.On the basis of our results, we believe that by integrating a thin current collector layer into the textilebased CNT SC, its specific capacitance is enhanced while its flexibility and durability can be maintained.This method allows us to make any non-conducting fabric into a SC and turn it into a portable and wearable energy storage device.

This paper describes woven fabrics made from polymer optical fibers (POF), which are treated with a CO 2 laser so that the resultant surface notches on the POFs facilitate side emission of light. The transmission and side-emitting behavior of POF with surface notches are studied in term of the variation in bending curvatures, which is related to end-usage of the woven fabrics as flexible displays, wearable phototherapy devices and fashion accessories. The measured power of transmission of light from the POF rapidly decreases with increasing bending curvature. However, the measured power of side-emission of light from the notched POFs remains almost constant at various bending curvatures within the experimental range. Theoretical analysis of the light propagation in a notched POF is conducted, which illustrates that more light is reflected from one side of the notch when the bending curvature is increased hence the transmission of the light is decreased. The theoretical and experimental results reach a good agreement.