Towards high performance and multi-functional structural membranes using advanced fibrous and textile materials

Abstract

Scientific and technological advancements in the area of fibrous and textilematerials have greatly enhanced their application potential in several high-end technical andindustrial sectors including construction, transportation, medical, sports, aerospaceengineering, electronics and so on. Excellent performance accompanied by light-weight,mechanical flexibility, tailor-ability, design flexibility, easy fabrication and relatively lowercost are the driving forces towards wide applications of these materials. Cost-effectivefabrication of various advanced and functional materials for structural parts, medical devices,sensors, energy harvesting devices, capacitors, batteries, and many others has been possibleusing fibrous and textile materials. Structural membranes are one of the innovative applications of textile structures and thesenovel building skins are becoming very popular due to flexible design aesthetics, durability,lightweight and cost benefits. Current demand on high performance and multi-functionalmaterials in structural applications has motivated to go beyond the basic textile structuresused for structural membranes and to use innovative textile materials. Structural membraneswith self-cleaning, thermoregulation and energy harvesting capability (using solar cells) areexamples of such recently developed multi-functional membranes. Besides these, there existenormous opportunities to develop wide varieties of multi-functional membranes usingfunctional textile materials. Additionally, it is also possible to further enhance theperformance and functionalities of structural membranes using advanced fibrous architecturessuch as 2D, 3D, hybrid, multi-layer and so on. In this context, the present paper gives anoverview of various advanced and functional fibrous and textile materials which haveenormous application potential in structural membranes.