Functional fibrous materials are a new family of fibre materials whose physical and chemical properties are sensitive to the change in the environment such as temperature, pressure, electric field, magnetic field, optical wavelength, adsorbed gas molecules and the pH value. This paper introduces a new approach to translate functions from nanoparticles to fibrous structures by co-electrospinning. Examples of nanofibres that have tailorable mechanical, electrical, magnetic, optical, thermal, hygroscopic, and antimicrobial functions are shown. The paper concludes with an example of the development of a multifunctional nanofibre scaffold for cartilage tissue regeneration.

This paper describes the relevance of knowledge of processes that happen at the skin for sports clothing design. It looks at skin temperature distribution while cooling, relevant e.g. to outdoor winter sports and mountaineering, at sweat distribution over the body while running, relevant e.g. to clothing designed for running in general and more particularly for exercise in warm and hot climates, and finally it looks into regional skin sensitivity, relevant for all fields of sports clothing design. As these areas interact heavily, the sports clothing designer needs to be aware of their influences and their interactions in order to optimise the clothing for the specific type of sport at hand.

Fabric Softness is one of main factors in guiding consumers' purchasing decisions, and many instrumental testing techniques quantifying this attribute have been proposed to substitute for its sensory evaluation. However, the performance is poor. By establishing a biomechanical model equivalent to the manner in which human fingertips sense the mechanical resistance against lateral compression of fabric, this study theoretically discusses the mechanical sensitivity of human sensing organs and the perceptual sensitivity of human sensory system. The results show that the mechanical sensitivity depends on the ratio of the mechanical resistance against compression of fabric to that of fingerpad, and the perceptual sensitivity on both the mechanical sensitivity and the capacity of human tactile system. Furthermore, the scatter among individual tactile evaluation on softness is attributed to the limitation of human tactile system processing stimulus information, and the assigned magnitude principally obeys a certain probability distribution, not a single averaging value statistically. In this sense, the deformability of soft tissues leads to an intrinsic difference of tactile evaluation from instrumental testing, although fabric compression property is detected on the same mechanical principle. The present conclusions will correct our misunderstandings in the effect-cause relationship between sensory attributes and instrumental testing.

Textile thermal bioengineering design involves the integration of multidisciplinary knowledge. Utilizing computer power and popularity to realize it creates a huge potential in designing clothing with advanced functions in an effective, economical and scientific way. This paper presents a virtual thermal bioengineering system for life-oriented design of textile products, which, by the combination of multidisciplinary knowledge, creates a virtual space for the designer to achieve textile bioengineering design in a life-oriented way. The thermal bioengineering framework and design principles of thermal functional clothing are shown, the development of the computer-aid system including the life-oriented design, simulation, visualization and project management, as well as the engineering database, is reported with case illustration.

The function of mannequin is important for designing and making clothes, and the garment size is crucial foundation for making out the standardized mannequins. With the extensive application of the non-contact three-dimensional human body scanning technology, the digitization of the anthropometric measurement has been realized which provides full support towards computer aided design of mannequins in garment industry. In order to match with the present national standard, intermediate forms of mannequin have been developed for fitting garments made to measure instead of human body. This paper reports related preliminary research of parameterized mannequin, based on the survey of female university students in the mid-west area in China. Using statistical calculations as the foundation, 7 categories of somatotypes were used to obtain intermediate sizes and stepping values. This mannequin provides variational control for middle layer measurements with the help of scanner software. Having measured girths of middle layer across breast, waist and hip separately, change relations after the statistical analysis provide the basis for determining changes in middle layers. Through the programming under the platform of VC++.net and OpenGL, parameterized mannequin can be created, enabling us to construct an intermediate model. Parameterized mannequin can fit standard series or customized, if necessary, to incorporate changes not only by stepping values based on statistical analysis, but also by arbitrary adjusting within an allowable range.

It has been reported that external pressure exerted on lower limbs helps to accelerate blood flow during doing exercise or playing sports and thus improving sports performance. In this paper, the pressure effect on skin blood flow was investigated. Pressures of various magnitudes were exerted on ankles and calves respectively by using a sphygmomanometer, under which the skin blood flow change was observed. The results showed that the skin blood flow increased when pressure of certain level was loaded at ankle or calf; however, as the pressure magnitude exceeding certain value, it turned to decrease. Moreover, ankles seemed to bear much higher pressure than calves. The mechanism of skin blood flow responding to external pressure was also discussed.

Previous simulations associated with the heat and moisture transfer behaviors of clothing are mainly expressed with mathematical models, relevant computational algorithms and numerical solution methods and thus accessible to only a few professionals in the field. A software platform, called the S-smart system, was designed and developed as a friendly computer aided design tool with user friendly interfaces for users with little/limited background knowledge of technical information, complex physics, mathematics and computational techniques. The purpose of this study is to report a simulation test, using the S-smart system, for predicting the thermal functional performance of personal protective clothing. The results pertaining to skin temperature, core temperature and humidity in the clothing microclimate between the chest wall and underwear were compared with experimental data. Good agreement, both in terms of the trends of changes and overall mean values, is observed between the two. Furthermore, 2D and 3D visualizations of the S-smart system seemed to provide more evidence that explains the heat and moisture transfer mechanisms and predicts thermal functional performance of clothing.

A series of the polysiloxanes modified with amino groups are synthesized. FTIR, 1HNMR are used to characterize the polysiloxane structure. Surface properties of the polysiloxane materials with amino groups are discussed. The results show that the polysiloxanes modified with tertiary amino groups had good flexibility and repellency to water. With increasing the amino value of the polysiloxanes, the flexibilities of the fabrics treated with the emulsion were improved. After the samples were treated with the polysiloxanes, the thermal yellowing had emerged. The whiteness of the fabrics treated with the polysiloxane decreased. The reflectance spectra of the fabrics treated without and with the modified polysiloxanes had not significant change.

Ornithoctonus huwenna spiders can be bred in mass production, and potential applications of the spider silk in medical materials should be paid attentions. Regenerated nano-scale spider silk nonwovens were prepared by electrospinning from tanglesome Ornithoctonus huwenna spider silk. The morphologies of the electrospun spider silk fibers were investigated, and the cell compatibilities were explored. The results showed that the electric field strength was an important factor for the diameter, degree of crystal and molecular conformation of electrospun Ornithoctonus huwenna spider silk. With the increase of electric field strength, fibers became fine and even, and the crystallinity and

Two kinds of antibacterial cotton fiber (called as C_{14} and C_t) were prepared by bonding a gemini-type quaternary ammonium compound with a hydroxyl group in their spacer chain [1,5-bis(tetradecyl dimethyl ammonium iodide)-3- pentanol (called as DAP_{14})] and a mono-type quaternary ammonium compound [N-tetradecyldimethyl (3-trimethoxysilylpropyl) ammonium chloride (called as TMMP)], respectively, to the surface of cotton fiber using a coupling agent, tetraethoxysilane. Antibacterial characteristic of C_{14} was investigated comparatively with C_t. The experimental results indicated that C14 has higher antimicrobial activity than Ct against a broad range of microorganism, and average net bactericidal ratio against 15 strains of gram-negative, gram-positive bacteria and yeasts is 98.0% at 30°C and pH 6.0, which are 25.2 and 17.2 percentage point higher than those of C_t at treated time of 30min and 60min, respectively. Antibacterial activity of C_{14} was hardly influenced by environmental pH and temperature, and could not be removed from the surfaces of cotton fiber by repeated washing with water.