Colloquia

Samenvatting

Compression garments are a common and effective treatment for a variety of venous diseases, as well as a popular tool enhancing sports performance, recovery, or looks. However, most compression gear is made using a fibre blend, which severely complicates the recycling of the garments after use. Developing textiles that have enough elasticity to provide adequate compression without the use of elastic fibres is a challenge. This thesis proposes to add an additional layer of structure to textile in order to accomplish just that. By utilizing origami pleat patterns, the stiffness of a textile can be converted into elasticity. After exploring various pleat patterns, a pattern consisting of square twists was chosen as the best candidate for this purpose. Since there is little research that has been conducted into pleating textiles in order to create elasticity, the pleat patterns and textiles used in this research have been kept deliberately plain. Based on the square twists pattern, a variety of samples were made to be tested using a 
custom tensile experimental set-up. The results show that elasticity can be induced in textiles without elastane using a tessellation pattern. Using this method, the samples yield a projected pressure of 0.31 kPa, or 2.4 mmHg. This is not enough pressure to be suitable for the development of compression gear. However, given the early stage of development of this method, with the recommendations from this research, it is likely that such levels will be reached with further research.