Biodegradable poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) film was modified by UV/ozone irradiation. The surface properties of the irradiated PBAT were characterized by surface roughness, contact angles, ESCA, and ATR analyses. The UV/ozone treatment uniformly roughened the film surface, where the maximum surface roughness of the unirradiated sample increased from 74 nm to 239 nm with UV energy of $15.9J/cm^2$. The modified PBAT became more hydrophilic as indicated by lower water contact angles of $10^{\circ}$ compared to the $72^{\circ}$ of the unirradiated PBAT. In addition, surface energy increased from $44.8mJ/m^2$ for the unirradiated PBAT to $50.1mJ/m^2$ with a larger UV energy of up to $15.9J/cm^2$. In addition, the improvement in hydrophilicity was caused by the introduction of polar groups containing oxygen bonds such as C-O and C=O resulting in higher O1s/C1s, which in turn resulted in a higher dyeability of the modified film to a cationic dye. The increased dyeability may have resulted from the photochemically introduced anionic and dipolar dyeing sites on the photo-oxidized PBAT surface.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the functional ingredients of Curcumae longae Rhizoma extracts and to confirm the possibility of producing polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofibers using these extracts. Distilled water and ethanol were used as extraction solvents. Terpene and its analogues as well as various volatile and essential oil components were detected in the distilled water and ethanol extracts. The total polyphenol content and flavonoid content showed that the Curcumae longae Rhizoma ethanol extract was higher than distilled water extract at $242.33{\mu}g/ml$ and $166.65{\mu}g/ml$, respectively. PVA nanofibers containing Curcumae longae Rhizoma ethanol extract were electrospun in a relatively uniform manner without the occurrence of beads as a whole. As the content of Curcumae longae Rhizoma ethanol extract increased, the diameter of the fiber increased as well; the range of approximately 330 to 610 nm was added with a 0.25-1.5% addition. The hydrogen bonding between the Curcumae longae Rhizoma extracts and PVA, as well as the resulting degrees of crystallinity, melting point, and increase in heat capacity were identified through a Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and differential scanning calorimetry analysis. Therefore, it was verified that the developed Curcumae longae Rhizoma/PVA nanofiber was created in a state wherein the bond between the molecules were smoothly achieved.

Carbon nanotube (CNT) materials have excellent mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties that make them interesting for their potential applications in the electronics and aerospace industries. In particular, carbon nanotube paper (CNP)/polymer composites are potential candidates for lightweight multi-functional structural materials with high mechanical performances. CNP can be fabricated by filtering aqueous suspensions of CNT. We confirm that carbon aqueous dispersion can be manufactured using ultrasonication. Our results showed dramatic improvements in electrical conductivity with a percolation threshold ~0.2% of CNT. By significantly improving the dispersion of CNT, we showed that only a very small amount of CNTs were needed to achieve the conductivity levels required for different electrical applications. In addition, we demonstrated that the aqueous dispersion of carbon fiber (CF) could be achieved using an ozone treatment; we also determined that CNT/CF paper could be fabricated by the wet laying of mixed CNT/CF aqueous dispersion as well. CNT/CF papers were embedded in epoxy resin by a resin infusion process to realize CNT/Epoxy composites. We also addressed the electrical conductivity measurements of CNT/CF paper as well as the mechanical properties of the paper and their polymer composites.

Realistic garment simulations are required not only for academic research but also for use in practical applications such as computer-aided garment design systems. There have been several previous approaches to simulate garment deformation, including the well-known continuum mechanics and fsinite element method. Although, the particle-based method has been more favored in the area of computer graphics, because of its numerical stability and calculation speed. However, the calculation of bending force and its derivatives is a major time bottleneck, along with the collision detection and linear system solving process. Therefore, this study proposes a new theoretical framework with a vector-inner-product-based bending force term to avoid heavy calculations incurred through the conventional angle-based formula. The commercial software $Mathematica^{(R)}$, was adopted to derive the tensor products efficiently; in addition, the final calculation speed benchmarking was tested using a three-pieced female garment data set. The sparsity of the final linear matrix was decreased and the resulting final calculation speed-up was 3.3%, for a virtual female garment dress simulation with 7,783 triangular elements.

Water vapor transfer through a fabric, and subsequently a layered clothing system, directly affects the human body's thermal comfort. Clothing systems are essentially a way of layering clothes together to ensure comfort during outdoor activities. The aim of this study was to investigate the behavior of a clothing system's water vapor transfer to determine a comfortable clothing system combination for outdoor activities. A water vapor transfer rate (WVTR) of 12 three-layer combinations of 100% wool and Coolmax fabrics as the base layer, two polyester fleece fabrics as the mid layer, and three waterproof breathable fabrics as the outer layer was tested. Our results show that when the clothing system was applied, it worked together as a whole with the layers having some noticeable influence on each other; it should be noted that every layer offered varying WVTR degrees. The WVTR of a clothing system is mainly related to the type of waterproof, breathable fabrics used for the outer layer. Therefore, a comparison of the WVTR of the outer layer to the clothing system shows that the exact same trend is followed. The WVTR of the clothing systems is significantly correlated with fabric treatments such as finishes, coatings, and film membranes that are added to the outer layer fabrics.

This paper presents a new test method to measure wet fabric clinging strain energy as well as clinging strength, both of which can be cited as factors in the evaluation of comfort. Knitted fabrics composed of cotton/polyester blend yarns in various structures were used as specimens for our test. The measured clinging strength and strain energy were rationalized in terms of the fiber wetting tension, fabric absorbent capacity, and fabric drape coefficient; the higher the fiber wetting tension and absorbent capacity, the higher the fabric clinging strength was. In addition, the higher the fabric clinging strength and the lower the fabric coefficient, i.e. the higher fabric flexibility, the higher the fabric clinging strain energy was. Sweat-soaked fabrics should not constrain the movement of the human body, and should be made to have low fabric clinging strength and energy. As such, the test method in the study can provide useful information in designing comfortable fabrics for sport and summer leisure applications.

Acid compounds, which are widely used in industry, are colorless and have difficulty in detecting when leaked by accident. In order to solve this problem, several researches on acid gas detection have been carried out, but there have been few studies on acid liquid (or solvent) detection with chemosensors. A chemosensor using halochromic dye can provide a simple and easy detecting method by exhibiting different color when it is exposed by acid liquid. In this study, bromophenol blue was selected as a pH-indicating dye for detecting acid liquid. Nylon 66 woven fabric was dyed with bromophenol blue and dyeing properties were investigated. pH sensing property was also investigated by dipping the dyed nylon fabric in acidic solution. At pH 2, bromophenol blue in aqueous solution showed maximum absorption at 437 nm with yellow color while, at the pH above 5, maximum absorption was changed to 591 nm with blue color. Bromophenol blue showed good color yield (K/S) on nylon 66 and dyeing property was dependent on dyeing pH as well as dye concentration. When the dyed sample was immersed at pH 2.5-4.0 acidic solution, its original blue color was maintained. However, its color markedly turned to green and yellow when immersed at pH 2.0 and 1.5 solution, respectively. Wash and water fastness of the dyed fabric was moderate to very good. Fixing agent treatment only resulted in adverse effects such as wide pH range for color changing and poor fastness properties.

Poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) (PPTA) and poly(2-cyano-1,4-phenylene terephthalamide) (CNPPTA)-based aramid copolymers were synthesized using a low-temperature polycondensation reaction between terephthaloyl chloride; 2-cyano-1,4-phenylene diamine, and/or 1,4-phenylene diamine in N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc). The aramid homopolymer and copolymers were dry-jet wet spun from the spinning dopes, which consisted of 13 wt% polymer and DMAc. Both the tensile strength and tensile modulus of the spun aramid fibers containing 60 mol% of 2-cyano-1,4-phenylene diamine were found to be enhanced by heat treatment. Wide-angle x-ray diffraction analysis revealed that crystallinity and crystal orientation were increased by heat treatment, which resulted in increased tensile strength and modulus. The effects of heat treatment on the tensile properties of aramid fibers have been studied by the concept of structure-property relations.

In this study, the mechanical properties of hybrid carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy composites were analyzed. Polyacrylonitrile and pitch-type carbon fibers were hybridized via different laminating sequences for application to a large-scale frame structure. The effects of epoxy resin curing conditions and laminating sequence of carbon fibers on the mechanical properties were investigated. In addition, the hole machining characteristics of the hybrid carbon fiber composites were studied. Burr and delamination phenomena during the hole machining process of composites were estimated with the quantitized values of the burr area and delamination factor under different cutting speeds and lamination conditions.