Extreme Textiles
A knitted bag holds a weakened heart, helping it pump blood. Electricity flows through the threads of a battery-powered fleece jacket, keeping the wearer warm. Carbon fibres are braided into structures that look like mushrooms, but are actually prototypes of automotive engine valves. Other fibres are shaped into bicycle frames and sculling oars.
Polymer skin is created using a process called electrospinning, that makes fibres out of an electrically charged solution containing dissolved polymers and sticks them onto an electrically charged surface. The fibres fall randomly but form a uniform layer, even on a three-dimensional surface. It's sort of like spray-on Gore-Tex,
said Dr Heidi Schreuder-Gibson of the Army Natick Soldier Centre. It's very breathable, just like skin.
Textiles are no longer just the stuff of clothing, carpets and furniture covering. Made of high-tech threads, they can also be found in lifesaving medical devices and the bodies of racing cars. One architect is proposing building a skyscraper out of carbon fibres.
All these hard core textiles are from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, where 150 items showing the advances of materials science are on display in a show called Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance.
'Extreme Textiles' Come of Age — New York Times (via BoingBoing)