Flexible Textile Structures

Additive Manufacturing Process

 

 

The Flexible Textile Structure is a research by Negar Kalantar and Alireza Borhani in collaboration with the DREAMS Lab at Virginia Tech. The new manufacturing process 3D printing opens new design possibilities. Moreover, it potentially represents a change in the way that we learn, in the way that we think, and in the way that we solve problems.

The additive manufacturing process is more eco-friendly; due to the nature of the process less material is wasted when compared to conventional processes (subtractive methods).

Flexible textile structures was an exploration into printed fabrics.The prototypes were generated by Rhino, Grasshopper and SolidWorks and fabricated with two additive manufacturing approaches, Powder Bed Fusion Process and FDM Process.

The main design concern was designing a fabric that has both flexibility and rigidity. No matter how the fabric is manipulated, the shape remains fixed.

Flexible textile structures can be developed to use and convert three-dimensional data into skin-conforming fabric structures. The potential for flexible textile structures tailored to the specific individual will be as accessible as the patterns that can be created, from interlocking Mobius motifs to tightly woven meshes.