Abstract:

Objective Studies show that moisture transferring fabric plays an important role in achieving the balance of heat and humidity of the whole garment. Sweat can be quickly conducted in the moisture transferring fabric, which help concentrate or drive sweat to the designated area, thus strengthening the ability of clothing to control sweat. In order to achieve the rapid conduction of moisture on the surface of fabric and improve the thermal and moisture comfort of clothing, an effort was made to combine the biological system with textiles in a multidisciplinary way to form a more characteristic biomimetic structure fabric. By referring to the liquid single-direction continuous transport mechanism on the surface of the nepenthe plant mouth edge area, a biomimetic structure fabric with a single-side moisture transfer function was designed aiming to optimize the structure design of fabric and the principle of moisture conduction.

Method By studying the three-layer micro-groove structure in the mouth edge area, it was found that the "duck-bill" pit with gradient wedge angle characteristics was the key to the liquid directional transport movement of nepenthe plants. The gradient wedge angle produced gradient tailor ascending effect in the micro-groove, which promoted the liquid climbing transport movement. Therefore, SM-DJ-2TS double-sided electronic circular knitting machine was adopted to produce a fabric with 18 stitches/(25.4 mm) and 912 stitches using single-sided and double-sided structure, and the 150 dtex(24 f) polyester low-elastic yarn and the 20/50 blending ratio of spandex/polyamide coated yarn were selected as raw materials. The structure fabric with the same shape as the bionic structure was designed to form the concave and convex fabric with the "duck bill" arch structure. Meanwhile, the structure model of the same shape was established, and the fluid finite element analysis was carried out with ANSYS software to simulate the movement scene of sweat on the surface of the structure fabric.

Results Simulation analysis showed that more water flow through the surface structure of the model would lead to faster flow velocity. The channel structure model would increase the flow velocity by about 43%, suggesting that the structure model was able to transport water and enhance the liquid wicking. Meanwhile, the experimental test of the wicking height showed that the bionic structure pit channel can enhance the core absorption effect of reagents. At 600 s of the experiment, the difference between the bionic structure fabric and the plain fabric was more obvious. The experimental results of bionic fabric wicking height test validated the simulation results. Besides, its surface diffusion area and diffusion speed also showed unique advantages. The liquid further diffused along the direction of the arch pit in the channel on the groove structure. Finally, the wetting and diffusion effect on the bionic structure fabric was irregular, but it was obviously different from plain fabric. On the plain fabric, the reagent diffused around the dripping point as the center, and finally formed a circular or oval wetting diffusion area. This indicates that the moisture can be diffused more rapidly in the pit channel of the bionic fabric structure, and the longer distance transmission showed the rapid and efficient one-way water transfer function effect.

Conclusion The design and development of moisture transferring fabric with structure at the edge of nepenthe plants can satisfy the application needs of functional products such as water guiding vamps, moisture controlling sports clothes and moisture conducting socks, which can optimize the moisture transferring of fabric and improve the comfort of heat and humidity of clothing, providing certain references for the design and development of moisture transferring fabric.

Key words: nepenthe, mouth structure, moisture transferring, micro groove structure, finite element analysis, water guide shoe upper, bionic fabric, knitted fabric