Technical Textile 1st Lecture

Technical Textiles
Dr. Abdul Waqar Rajput

Introduction
 How old the technical textiles are ?
 Broader scope from manufacturing of polymer, coating and speciality membranes,
finish products and utilisation in the end products
 Not a single coherent industry
 Challenging the traditional definition of the textiles
 Eroding barrier between traditional definitions of textiles and other flexible
engineering material i.e. paper and plastics, films and membranes, metals, glass
and ceramics.
What are Technical Textiles
 “ textile materials and products manufactured primarily for their technical and
performance properties rather than their aesthetic or decorative characteristics”
(textile Institute)
 What if the product combines both performance and aesthetics.
 Any approach to strictly describe the technical textiles is doomed to failure.
Industrial or Technical
Textiles
 For many years industrial textiles was widely used to encompass all textile products
other than those intended for apparel, household and furnishing.
 More widely preferred term in US is industrial textiles than in Europe
 Industrial textiles are now perceives as the sub class of technical textiles
 Industrial textiles used in the course of manufacturing (filters, machines clothing,
conveyor belts, abrasive substrate etc)
Main application areas
1) Agrotech: agriculture, aquaculture, horticulture and forestry
2) Buildtech: building and construction
3) Clothtech: technical components of footwear and clothing
4) Geotech: geotextiles and civil engineering
5) Hometech: technical components of furniture, house hold textiles and floorings
6) Indutech: conveying cleaning and other industrial uses
7) Meditech: hygiene and medical
Main application areas
8) Mobiltech: automobiles, shipping, railways and aerospace.
9) Oekotech: environmental protection
10) Packtech: packaging
11) Protech: personal and property protection
12) Sporttech: sport and leisure
At different time different names are used to describe Technical textile e.g.
Performance textiles, functional textiles, engineering textiles and high tech textiles.
Important Mile Stones
 Until early 20th century major technical fibres available were cotton, flax,
jute and sisal. Silk was also used as surgical suture thread.
 around 1910 first synthetic fibre viscos rayon was developed
 by 1920 it was widely used as reinforcement material for tyres, driver belts,
conveyor belts and hoses.
 Later on its properties of being good absorbent and ease to be processed by
the paper industry type wet machine made it a fibre of choice to be utilised
in disposable cleaning and hygiene end use.
 Polyamide (nylon) fibre was first introduced in 1939

 Having high strength, abrasion resistance, good elasticity and uniformity as
well as resistance to moisture
 Used in climbing ropes, parachute fabric and ship sails.
 It is still used in as reinforcing material in tyres for developing countries road
and off road vehicles. Unlike in western Europe where the average speed is
much higher and viscos heat resistant properties are highly valued.
 Development of polyolefins (polypropylene and poethylene) tapes, films and

yarns in 1960s was another mile stone.
 It was easy to process, moisture resistant and good strength
 Application as sacks, bags, and packaging material.
 Carpet backings and furniture linings as well as ropes and netting. Replacing
jute
 Relatively low processing temperature
 Complete water resistant put to good use in hygienic products in combination
with viscos
 High performance fibre emerged in 1980s

 The game changer
 Kevlar
 Carbon fibre available since 1960s but high material and processing cost
(limited to space industry) but now increasingly used in sporting equipment,
wind turbine blades
 1980 new materials appeared in the market PBI (polybenzimidazole),
UHMWPE,
 Chemically stable materials for filtration such as PTFE, PPS (polyphenyl
sulphide, PEEK (polyethyleetherketone)
 Glass fibre replacing metal parts in automobile industry

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Technical Textiles

Dr. Abdul Waqar Rajput

 Polyamide (nylon) fibre was first introduced in 1939

 Development of polyolefins (polypropylene and poethylene) tapes, films and

 High performance fibre emerged in 1980s

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