Four-dimensional textiles are textiles that can change shape or function over time by the influence of a stimulus, mainly force and heat. In this review, the focus is on 4D textiles made by additive manufacturing which is built on the concept of 4D printing. A literature survey in Web of Science and Scopus was carried out, which resulted in 29 contributions on additive manufacturing on pre-stressed textiles. In this paper, an overview of materials, production technologies and testing methods is given. The concepts of form giving and shape change transferred to 4D textiles are classified. The influencing factors on the properties of the material structure are presented. The main focus of the literature lies in defining process and material properties for improving the adhesion. Only limited research has been conducted on simulating the material behavior. Ideas for applications exist but no research has been conducted on real applications. Therefore, the challenges are identified, and future research directions are derived.
The influence of knit fabric structure on the adhesion of three-dimensional (3-D) printed textiles was examined. 3-D printing was applied to different elastic knitted fabrics with different amounts of prestretch, typical for 4-D fabric construction. The quality of the bond was measured in terms of peel strength. Peel strength was measured by pulling the fabric at 180 from the printed plastic to delaminate the 2 and recording the 10 highest peak values observed during the test. The printed width, the ratio of fabric width of print width, fabric washing, and fabric structure were varied. The specimens were then evaluated for peel strength.
Four dimensional (4D) textiles consist of a textile with a printed polymeric grid, where deformation of the grid is induced by introducing residual stresses in the textile, in this case through pre-stretching of the textile substrate prior to printing. The fourth dimension refers to the ability of the structure to change shape over time by changing the residual stress in the textile. In order to design a useful component for a specific application, the material properties of constituents, direction and amount of residual stress, anisotropy of the textile substrate, geometry of the printed polymer, and pattern of the printed grid can all be altered. Due to the large amount of design variables involved, a validated modeling technique that can account for the complex material behavior of the soft, flexible textile under large strains and deformations along with the bifurcation and stability behavior of buckling beams is needed. In this study, an initial model was created to capture the time-independent buckling behavior and compared with experiments for rectangular elements of varying geometry and pre-strain. Once the model was calibrated, it fit experiments well, although additional advancements must be made to predict the nonlinear behavior of a wide variety of architectures with further accuracy. Finally, modeling strategies for large grids are laid out and discussed, and preliminary results are shown. Although this model did not include the transient nature of shape change, it can serve as a precursor for designing 4D Textiles and eventually predicting their time-dependent behavior under loading changes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.