ABSTRACT
Today, wearable electronics play a vital role in many applications such as in the military, medical application, telecommunications and in health-care garments. Conductive textiles also provide a wide range of applications in civilian and military areas. In this research work, an attempt has been made to design and develop core-sheath conductive yarns with copper filament as their core and cotton as sheath using Dref-3 friction spinning system. Copper core conductive yarns are used to develop conductive fabrics. These fabrics have excellent scope for the development of many applications such as electromagnetic-shielding wearable textiles, mobile phone charging and body temperature-sensing garments. The electro-mechanical characteristics of the copper core conductive yarns and fabrics have been studied. In this chapter, different types of yarn and fabric production techniques, modifications carried out in the conventional textile machines for developing the fabrics using specialty yarns, problems faced during the production processes and the solutions are discussed.
