3D Printed Clothing Ensembles for The Next Generation Navy Uniform
Introduction
The design and fabrication of clothing item is a multi-step process that starts with fiber production leading to fabric manufacturing, sizing, designing and tailoring; all time consuming, invasive, and often inaccurate processes resulting in consumer dissatisfaction. Compared to traditional textile manufacturing methods, which assemble 3D structures from 2D components, Additive Manufacturing does not require to transition from 2D to 3D, thus conventional spreading, cutting, and sewing can be eliminated. In addition, AM permits to incorporate complex designs into textile products and offers the potential to create seamless clothing.
In order to reduce the number of steps required to manufacture an item of clothing and simplify the production of the personalized garments (“One for You” not “One Fit All”), this project was focused on developing new polymeric materials that can be extruded to make filaments compatible with Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technique to produce clothing articles with mechanical strength and water vapor transport capabilities essential for fabrics.
As a deposition technology, 3D Printing provides a means for the development of new products in fabric design and personal clothing production. Compared to the traditional textile industry, which assembles 3D structures from 2D components, 3D Printing allows direct manufacturing of 3D objects. In addition, 3D Printing permits to incorporate complex designs into textile products and offers the potential to create seamless clothing. 3D Printing uses powdered, solid, or liquid polymers to produce the item, thus there is no need for fabrics, raw material knitting, or weaving.
Several attempts have been made to fabricate textiles using AM processes. Freedom of Creation (now 3D Systems) fabricated a series of flexible textile-like structures that were printed via Selective Laser Sintering (see Figure on the Right). The design resembled chain mail fabric and was created using polyamide interlocking rings and chains. Freedom of Creation project demonstrated the potential to create fabrics using 3D Printing but was limited in usability by the weight of the product, scale, and cost. Designers and 3D Printing community attempted several follow-up projects; however, they had difficulty to overcome similar limitations.
Project Goal: to reduce the number of steps required to manufacture an item of clothing and simplify the production of the personalized garments (“One for You” not “One Fit All”)
Benefits:
- Customization and personalized items fabrication
- Faster design cycle with great accuracy
- Low volume and local/remote locations manufacturing
- Models can be stored on the server and adjusted as needed
- Reduction of logistic burden and positive environmental impact due to low waste
Results:
- Discovered polymeric materials suitable for production of wearable garments and processable via FFF
- Base polymer materials were successfully modified with additives, which led to up to 80% increase in flexibility of the fabricated filaments compared to the base material
- Quality of extruded filaments was strongly dependent on the composition
- Custom filaments were successfully processed using FFF
- Fabrication of specimens with a high loading of additives required nozzle and FFF system modification to ensure a successful build
- Modification of the base material with selected additives led to increase in flexibility and water absorption of the fabricated specimens
- Modification of the printing strategies by adjusting machine’s code was a key for the creation of custom printing patterns that significantly affected the performance of fabricated specimens
- Launderability testing did not show any visible or mechanical degradation of fabricated textile specimens