Modeling of package-free flexible conductive fabric with thermal regulation where temperature can be customized

Abstract

Temperature control of thermal fabrics has recently become a topic of interest. It was reported that the electrical resistance of fabrics embedded with conducting yarns can be affected by temperature change. In this paper the quantitative relationship between electrical resistance of a conductive knitted fabric and temperature was established. Based on this relationship, a theoretical model was proposed to control the temperature of conductive knitted fabrics in different courses and different wales. One important parameter of fabrics, which reflects how the electrical resistance of a fabric changes in percentage corresponding to the temperature change and is independent of the sizes of the fabrics, is the β value ( $=k\sqrt{\frac{\alpha }{R_0}}$ , where k, α, R₀ are the electrical resistance decrease speed, thermal diffusivity and initial resistance of the fabrics). By analyzing the β value, initial resistance R₀ and thermal diffusivity α of the fabrics, satisfactory simulation of the experimental data was achieved by using the model, which indicates that the model can be used in temperature control in future applications.