Development of conductive thread heating element on wireless heating e-textile belt for thermotherapy application

Abstract

Thermotherapy is the application of heat as a relief for pain and discomfort. That is because heat stimulates the sensory receptors in an isolated section of the body decreasing the transmission of pain signals to the brain. This study presents a heating e-textile belt to provide the needed temperatures for thermotherapy using conductive thread as heating elements. Bekinox 50/1 (BK 50/1) and conductive thread provided by Philippine Textile and Research Institute (PTRI) were tested on the threads’ temperature response to the input voltage. A regression model having 30 samples each thread was computed and tested using T-test, both data samples obtained scores of 28.30499 for the BK 50/1 and 1.18830 for the PTRI conductive thread with a critical score of . BK 50/1 showed a linear relationship with the input voltage while the PTRI conductive thread showed none. The heating element made of BK 50/1 conductive thread was developed and has the capability of producing needed temperatures for thermotherapy. Implementing this heating element to the system, a series of 10 trials with different target temperatures was done. It produced accurate temperatures with a mean percent error of 0.1420%, 0.5051% maximum.