High air and moisture permeability honeycomb structure fabric based on filament spreading technology

Abstract

Textiles incorporating functionality have attracted increasing attention due to their yarn structure modulation. However, developing honeycomb fabrics that simultaneously possess high air permeability, moisture absorption, and moisture permeability remains challenging. This study employs filament spreading technology to integrate rigid basalt filaments, metal wires, and flexible cotton fibers into a composite yarn structure, thereby designing and fabricating a soft honeycomb fabric. This approach enhances yarn performance by reducing the single-yarn diameter and improving fiber cohesion, thereby ultimately improving various properties of the resulting fabric. Compared to the non-spreading filament composite yarn (NSFCY), its counterpart subjected to spreading treatment (SFCY) exhibited a 15.3% reduction in single-yarn diameter (from 0.60 mm to 0.52 mm).And when woven into honeycomb structures, the fabric made with spreading filament composite yarn (H-SFCY) demonstrated significant performance enhancements over the non-spreading type (H-NSFCY), including a 119.7% improvement in air permeability (increasing from 756.1 mm/s to 1661.1 mm/s), a 43.9% enhancement in moisture permeability (from 142.5 g/m^²·h to 205 g/m^²·h), and a 45.6% reduction in bending stiffness (from 19.23 mN·mm to 10.47 mN·mm), indicating substantially improved softness. By establishing efficient air/moisture transport pathways through a multifilament-covered staple fiber structure (a configuration where continuous filaments sheath a core of staple fibers) and employing the Hagen–Poiseuille law and existing mathematical models to analyze the quantitative relationship between structural parameters and air permeability, this study provides an effective strategy and theoretical foundation for developing high-performance flexible functional textiles, showing broad application potential in areas such as wearable equipment.