The contact angles, wicking properties, scourability, and dyeability of wool and cotton fabrics are affected by low-temperature plasma treatments. After treatment, wool and cotton fabric specimens show increased hydrophilicity and improved scouring and dyeing processing by nearly 50%.

Following previous work [ Textile Research Journal, 74,751-756 (2004)], the mechanical and surface properties and handle of wool and cotton fabrics were measured using the KES-FB system after different stages of treatment. This investigation shows that the mechanical properties of wool and cotton changed remarkably after oxygen plasma treatment. There were no significantly observed differences between plasma treated and untreated fabrics after wet scouring and dyeing.

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Phase change materials (PCMs) are widely being used in thermal energy storage systems for solar engineering, building materials, heat pumps, spacecraft, and in textile field especially smart and technical textiles. There are large numbers of organic and inorganic PCMs that possess a wide range of melting and solidifying temperature which attracts researcher's attention for their applications in different fields. This review paper summarizes the investigation and analysis of the available organic and inorganic PCMs, different encapsulating techniques, characterization techniques, incorporation into fiber and pad application on textiles with practical applications in the field of smart textiles.

The currently used high-performance fiber materials for soft body armor have very low surface friction and this has become an issue in the effectiveness of ballistic energy absorption. In this study, non-polymerizing reactive plasma gas N2 and chemical vapor (CH3)2Cl2Si were employed to modify Kevlar fabric surface for the application of ballistic impact material. Scanning electron microscopy observations yield information about the surface effect of the fabrics after plasma treatment. The surface morphology of the treated fabrics was studied. Energy-dispersive X-ray analysis was used to analyze the surface chemical properties of the treated samples. The yarn pulling-out test shows that the resistance to pulling out yarns from fabrics plasma-treated treated with N2 and (CH3)2Cl2Si plasma-treated fabric is increased 18% and 300% respectively, compared with the untreated Kevlar fabric. Finite element simulation results revealed that fabric with a higher surface coefficient of friction performs better in ballistic energy absorption.

This study presents a new gas-liquid model to predict electrical submersible pumps head performance. The newly derived approach based on gas-liquid momentum equations along pump channels has improved the Sachdeva model (Sachdeva, R., Doty, D. R., and Schmidt, Z., 1988, “Two-Phase Flow through Electrical Submersible Pumps,” Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Tulsa, Oklahoma; 1994, “Performance of Electric Submersible Pumps in Gassy Wells,” SPE Prod. Facil., 9, pp. 55–60) in the petroleum industry and generalized the Minemura model (Minemura, K., Uchiyama, T., Shoda, S. and Kazuyuki, E., 1998, “Prediction of Air-Water Two-Phase Flow Performance of a Centrifugal Pump Based on One-Dimensional Two-Fluid Model,” ASME J. Fluids. Eng., 120, pp. 327–334) in the nuclear industry. The new two-phase model includes novel approaches for wall frictional losses for each phase using a gas-liquid stratified assumption and existing correlations, a new shock loss model incorporating rotational speeds, a new correlation for drag coefficient and interfacial characteristic length effects by fitting the model results with experimental data, and an algorithm to solve the model equations. The model can predict pressure and void fraction distributions along impellers and diffusers in addition to the pump head performance curve under different fluid properties, pump intake conditions, and rotational speeds.

a b s t r a c tPhase change materials are used for thermal management solution in textiles because of the automatic acclimatising properties of textiles. Most of the phase change materials used in textiles is usually found in the range of 28e32 C of their melting point. This paper reports a type of smart monofilament fibre development incorporated with microencapsulated phase change material through melt spinning process. Up to 12% microcapsules are successfully incorporated into the polypropylene monofilament showing 9.2 J/g of latent heat. Some of the mechanical properties of the developed fibre are also studied together with the surface morphology of monofilament. A statistical model is developed for latent heat, tenacity and modulus of monofilament fibre and is validated by experimental values. The fibre properties predicted by the developed models are agreed very well to the experiments results.

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