• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.939-949
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• 2017

This study uses 3D printing technology to design and fabricate a fall impact protection pad with a spacer fabric structure. The design of the pads consists of hexagonal three-dimensional units connected in a honey-comb shape; in addition, the unit consists of a surface layer and a spacer layer. Protect pads were designed as either a hexagonal type or diamond type according to the surface layer structure; subsequently, a spacer filament was also designed as the most basic I-shape type. Designed pads were printed using four types of flexible filaments to select suitable material for a fall impact protection pad. Impact protection performance and bending stiffness were evaluated for the eight type of pad outputs. As a result of the impact protection performance evaluation, when the force of 6,500N was applied, the force passed through the pad was in the range of 1,370-2,132N. FlexSolid$^{(R)}$ and Skinflex$^{TM}$ showed good protection performance and cubicon flexible filament showed the lowest protection. NinjaFlex$^{(R)}$ was found to be the most flexible in the bending stiffness evaluation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.612-625
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• 2018

This study designed 16 kinds of basic structure and 4 kinds of modified structure for impact protection pads with a spacer fabric shape. The pad is a structure in which hexagonal three-dimensional units, composed of a surface layer and a spacer layer, are interconnected. Designed pads were printed with flexible $NinjaFlex^{(R)}$ materials using a FDM 3D printer. The printed pads were evaluated for impact protection performance, compression properties and sensory properties. The evaluation of the impact protection performance indicated that basic structures better than CR foam material at 20cm height were DV1.5, DX1.5, DX1.0, DV1.0 and HV1.5. The evaluation of the compression properties for the five types, with good results in the impact protection performance, indicated that DV1.0, DX1.0, DV1.5, HV1.5 and DX1.5 showed good results, respectively. The sensory evaluation of DV1.0, DX1.0, and DV1.5, which with good results when considering both the impact protection performance and the compression performance, showed that DV1.0 were the best for surface, flexibility, compression and weight. Therefore, DV1.0 is shown to be the best structure for protection pads.