Engineered Textiles and Composites
Textiles is a diverse sophisticated industry which is dependent on the fundamental principles of understanding materials and the manufacturing processes. The industry has traditionally focused on clothing but as the awareness of what can be achieved using fibre-based structures has increased, the usage of innovative Technical Textiles engineered for specialised value added markets has rapidly expanded. Textiles in a word have been "rediscovered"!
As the complexity of the application and material increases, so the necessity to innovate and engineer the product becomes vital. An obvious area of global impact is composites where the critical textile component is a 3D preform embedded in a resin to produce strong, lightweight and efficient structural materials used in planes, boats, cars etc. By building on our core expertise in weaving, knitting, nonwovens, and fibre processing and mechanics the research team has developed an international research reputation in traditional and technical textiles areas such as:
- Textile Composites
- 3D Structures
- Medical Textiles
- Fibre and Fabric Mechanics and Interactions
- Hair Analysis
- Clothing Engineering/Comfort and Microclimates
- Ballistics and Personal Protection
- Sustainable Textile Materials
Facilities
Textiles and Paper have established world class research facilities able to process and manufacture a comprehensive range of materials, for example carbon fibre 3D weaving equipment and scan-to-knit fully fashioned seamless knitted sportwear. In addition with extensive networking within and outside the School, access is available to a wide range of surface and bulk characterisation techniques. Through this extensive provision facilities are available to reproduce in-service conditions, thereby meeting industrial needs.