Actuating and energy absorbing textiles composed of NiTi microfilament over-twisted coiled yarns

摘要

Traditional textile structures made of multifunctional materials leverage unique material behaviors through a hierarchical manufacturing process to develop tailored solutions applicable to robotic, transportation, and medical device industries. For example, knitted and woven textiles made of shape memory materials can provide high force and distributed motions for programmable surfaces, soft robotic grippers, and active compression garments. Additionally, 3D spacer fabrics with superelastic materials can provide constant force profiles, enhanced damping frequency ranges, and large energy dissipations for prosthetic attachments, helmet technology, and impact resistance fortifications. Usually, researchers manufacture multifunctional textiles with monofilament and yarns but recently, over-twisted coiled structures have demonstrated improved actuation contractions, force generations, and strain recovery. This research presents the creation of NiTi microfilament over-coiled yarns within textile structures, demonstrating their dual potential as high force linear actuators from the shape memory effect, and compact energy absorbers from superelasticity. To highlight the actuation potential of NiTi over-twisted coiled yarn textiles, the coiled yarns were integrated in parallel within a woven textile. The over-twisted coiled weave was experimentally investigated for actuation contractions, and generated forces. For energy absorption, the NiTi over-twisted coiled yarns were structured within a 3D spacer textile structure, and experimentally investigated quasi-statically for strain recovery and energy absorption through hysteresis, as well as dynamically for mapping damping performance dependent behavior. This work expands the profile of NiTi based multifunctional textiles to offer improved and tailored solutions for actuating and energy absorbing technologies.