The Doctoral Network SOFTWEAR is a highly interdisciplinary Doctoral Network in the emerging and rapidly growing field of wearables, with a unique focus on soft actuators for wearables and exoskeletons. The primary objective of SOFTWEAR is to train young researchers in the multidisciplinary science of soft actuators for integration in wearables and augmenting textiles. This will be achieved by merging chemistry, physics, mechanics, electronics, textile technology, design, human-technology interaction and ethics in a truly interdisciplinary manner, while teaching essential skills in ethics, product development, IPR and industrial realisation, thus providing a unique added value to the careers of the Researchers. This ambitious aim will be accomplished by on-the-job training on innovative research projects developing beyond-the-state-of-the-art soft actuator technology and integrating this into active garments and soft exoskeletons. This will be carried out at leading academic groups and by immersion in applied projects at the industrial partners. SOFTWEAR will thus provide Europe with highly educated researchers in the emerging field of wearables, focused on integrating actuation. This will put Europe in a world-leading position in this field and will supply European companies with a highly skilled workforce in soft actuators and advanced smart textiles.
During this project a PhD student will develop new electrocontracting yarn muscles for electroactive textiles by combining carbon nanotube yarns and ionoelastomers. Carbon nanotube (CNT) yarn will be optimized to obtain long, highly conducting, capacitive and robust yarns acting as the electromechanically active core of the yarn muscle. Ionoelastomers based on crosslinked polymeric ionic liquids will be synthesized and optimized to obtain liquid-free, safe, stretchable and washable ionic coatings acting as the ion source necessary for the electrical stimulation of the CNT yarns. The resulting ionic yarn muscles will be characterized and finally integrated into a demonstrator of electroactive textile able to convert low voltage stimulation into mechanical contractions and forces. Host University: Cergy Paris University, France. The fabrication of CNT yarns by dry spinning of long and dense CNT forest produced by Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) process will be investigated and optimized during a 6 months visit at CEA-NIMBE-LEDNA.
https://softwear-dn.eu
PhD thesis of G. Ananieva