Abstract
Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs), which possess has the unique property of returning to their original shape when applying the heat, have expanded their practical application not only to medical and industrial products, and further but also to functional clothing. We aimed to develop a thermal massaging elbow brace by applying not only the physical deformation and mechanical property characteristic of the SMA-based knitting fabric but also the mechanical property of the heat generation during its physical deformation phase, and analyze the device’s wearability based on the three quantitative measures – clothing pressure, skin temperature, and blood flow. We found that the clothing pressure at the arms did not exceed the allowable value allowance in the arm area to be worn on the human body, the skin temperature and blood flow gradually increased and then maintained sustained. The results of this study demonstrated that the prototyped brace could be appropriate as an appropriate wearable massaging device that could help increase the skin temperature and blood circulation of a wearer by providing desirable compression and thermal regulation only using only knitting fabric without additional auxiliary equipment.
Highlights
The uses of Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs), which has the property of returning to their original shape when the heat is applied, have expanded to medical and industrial products, and to consumer products such as gloves or shapewear
The participant sat with his arms on the desk 1) without wearing the brace for 1 minute, 2) he wore the brace in the same posture and was measured for clothing pressure, skin temperature, and blood flow for 1 minute
The curvature of the plain pattern was more than 180 degrees, the shrinkage rate of the rib pattern was 19%, and the strain force was 0.72N
Summary
The uses of Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs), which has the property of returning to their original shape when the heat is applied, have expanded to medical and industrial products, and to consumer products such as gloves or shapewear. SMAs applied in functional clothing products were typically made in spiral forms, in a way to offer breathability to the fabricated material. Researchers (Ashir et al, 2019; Han & Ahn, 2017) have tried to convert SMAs into the form of yarns and examined the physical properties of those applications to explore whether SMAs were suitable for clothing or other wearable products. There are a considerable number of studies that explored the potential of SMAs in functional clothing applications, most were focused on the smart material’s physical shape deformation. We aimed to develop a thermal massaging elbow brace by applying the physical deformation characteristic of the SMA-based knitting fabric, and the aforementioned mechanical property of the heat generation during its physical deformation phase. We analyzed the wearability of the prototyped elbow brace based on the quantitative measures such as clothing pressure, skin temperature, and blood flow
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