Development of Shape Memory Knitted Fabrics/Garments

Shape Memory Materials are one group of very promising smart materials. Among all shape memory materials have limited development in apparel and related areas. By far, we have developed Shape memory cotton woven fabrics/garments. There are wider potential to apply shape memory polymer in the fields of textile and clothing such as knitted wool fabrics/garments. The objective of this project is to develop shape memory knitted fabrics/ garments made of cotton and wool including sweater. We propose to develop knitted fabrics/garments finished using SMP. During wearing and washing finished knitted fabrics/garments will have following properties: (1) Dimension stability (2) Durable crease retention (3) Wrinkle recovery (4) Bagging recovery (5) Good flat appearance (6) Good shape retention (7) High strength (8) Crinkle effect (9) Other functions That is to say that these knitted fabrics/garments treated with SMP can recover to their original flat appearance, flat appearance features and press-in crease state with the help of washing at higher temperature or wearing at body temperature. The garments treated with SMP can be endowed with crinkle effect during production, which was durable during wearing and washing. Especially, the SMP wool knitted fabrics/garments including sweater will meet the demand of machine washability.