TEXTILES.ORG
IPC’s D-70 E-Textiles Committee has released IPC WP-024, IPC White Paper on Reliability and Washability of Smart Textile Structures – Readiness for the Market. This white paper provides insights from a team of researchers on e-textiles washability testing parameters and initial results from those tests. It’s expected to be the first in a series of papers from industry. Current research in smart textiles and e-textiles indicates that they are not yet ready for the market at a large scale due to problems that exist with reliability and the difficulty with laundering e-textile structures.
Specific to reliability, e-textile structures should be in good functioning condition over a period of several years, if used in accordance with product guidelines. However, the additional issues of integration, connector elements, and overall supply chain integration are critical for success. IPC-WP-024 emphasizes all the problems inherent in creating effective e-textiles, encompassing efforts that industry and research laboratories must undertake to make e-textile structures more robust.
Committee chair, Stephanie Rodgers of Apex Mills says, “Home laundering and commercial cleaning is an everyday reality for millions of textile wearable products. Explosive growth in e-textiles is just starting to break through performance market segments making standardization urgently necessary. This e-textile laundering research identifies with the procedure and requirements gap of these merging manufacturing technologies. The IPC E-Textiles Committee is corralling industry manufacturers to participate in the discussion of new e-textiles standards creation.”
E-Textiles 2918 Sept. 13 in Chicago
In partnership with leaders of the e-textiles industry, IPC has created a one-day workshop, September 13, 2018, on a range of topics concerning the e-textiles market. IPC E-Textiles 2018 will provide a venue for active participation during technical presentations as well as hands-on learning and networking in the technology showcase. The event will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn, Chicago O’Hare Airport.
In addition to the technical education and networking on September 13, IPC E-Textiles 2018 will also be host to standards development committee meetings on September 12. For more information about this event and the standards committee, email Chris.Jorgensen@ipc.org.
IPC-WP-024 will be provided free of charge to all IPC E-Textiles 2018 attendees. The D-70 committee plans to discuss how standards should address washability reliability during the standards committee forum, which will take place September 12, 2018, the day before E-Textiles 2018. To register for IPC E-Textiles 2018, visit www.ipc.org/E-Textiles-2018.
To purchase the white paper, visit http://shop.ipc.org/IPC-WP-024-English-D. The committee invites readers to also provide white papers with their own findings and perspectives on e-textiles washability reliability. To propose a white paper topic, email etextiles@ipc.org.