Textiles of today are materials with applications in almost all our activities. We wear clothes all the time and we are surrounded with textiles in almost all our environments. The integration of multifunctional values in such a common material has become a special area of interest in recent years. Smart Textile represents the next generation of textiles anticipated for use in several fashion, furnishing and technical textile applications. The term smart is used to refer to materials that sense and respond in a pre-defined manner to environmental stimuli. The degree of smartness varies and it is possible to enhance the intelligence further by combining these materials with a controlling unit, for example a microprocessor. As an interdisciplinary area Smart Textile includes design spaces from several areas; the textile design space, the information technology design space and the design space of material science. This thesis addresses how Smart Textiles affect the textile design space; how the introduction of smart materials and information technology affects the creation of future textile products. The aim is to explore the convergence between textiles, smart materials and information technology and to contribute to providing a basis for future research in this area. The research method is based on a series of interlinked experiments designed through the research questions and the research objects. The experiments are separated into two different sections: interactive textile structures and health monitoring. The result is a series of basic methods for how interactive textile structures are created and a general system for health monitoring. Furthermore the result consists of a new design space, advanced textile design. In advanced textile design the focus is set on the relation between the different natures of a textile object: its physical structure and its structure in the context of design and use.

This thesis has evaluated how electrical surface resistance can be measured on conductive coated textiles using two different probes. The electrical surface resistance is a measurement for how difficult it is for current to flow through a material. For textiles, the surface resistance can be measured using four metallic plates, that measure the difference between current supply and voltage drop, this method is called a linear four-point probe.   There is no standard method for measuring the electrical surface resistance on conductive textiles. Therefore, it is not possible to compare textiles made by different producers. It is also not possible to decide what the true resistance is and as conductive textiles are becoming more popular to use, this has started to become a problem in the industry.   Two probes with electrodes of different dimensions were used to evaluate how different electrodes would affect the measured resistance. Measurements were conducted on conductive coated textiles with varying parameters, like coating thickness, sample size and textile construction, to show how the electrical resistance properties differ depending on what probe was used.   It was found that in contrast to other research on conductive textiles and collinear four-point probes, the probes used in this study could detect electrical anisotropic properties. The resistance was different depending on what angle it was measured in. This was found for both a thicker coating and a thinner one. It was also found that the probes could detect a correlation between the angular resistance and the textile construction used.   By measuring the resistance on small samples with the same dimension as the probes electrodes, the resistance was increased compared to when measurements were conducted on samples with dimensions significantly larger than the probes.   Furthermore, the results showed that increasing the distance between the inner electrodes of the probe decreased the measured resistance for both large and small samples. Additionally, it was found that by increasing the width of the outer electrodes the resistance was decreased, an increase in outer electrode width also made it easier to detect electrical anisotropic properties.

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Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon based material with unique properties, such as electrical and thermal conductivity. When a textile is coated with graphene, it becomes conductive, while remaining low weight, soft, breathable, flexible, and stretchable. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate what products are suitable to be made with graphene textiles, by using the method Material Driven Design (MDD). Reflections are also made to determine how this method is affected by being applied to a two-dimensional material. To help with this, three kinds of graphene textiles from the company Grafren AB are investigated; conductive textiles, heatable textiles, and textile sensors. The product goal is to develop a portfolio containing 5-8 conceptual products based on these graphene textiles. The process includes conducting an investigation of the technical properties of the material, a user study, and a benchmarking study. This is done to understand the limitations and opportunities of the material, how it is perceived, and what similar materials there are on the market. After that, the material's characteristics are reflected upon to establish a vision for how it should be used in future applications. Then, to follow that vision, a user study is conducted to investigate how people perceive different materials and products, in order to create design guidelines to ensure that the material and product are perceived as intended. Next, concepts are developed according to the previously determined guidelines. To achieve this, idea generating workshops are conducted, where 14 concepts are selected for further development. The portfolio is then created, meant to inspire further usage of the material. It contains the following seven concepts. A heatable textile meant for cooking on camping trips. A fabric containing sensors that can notify when it is damaged. A keyboard made of fabric, for an easy and comfortable use and transportation. A stroller with sensors and heaters, for a more comfortable and safe user experience. A conductive jacket that can electrocute mosquitoes that come in contact with it. Pressure sensors in a carpet that can keep track of the people inside and provide assistance in emergencies. Gloves with sensors in them that can translate sign language live to text or speech. Since MDD heavily focuses on the sensorial qualities and physical characteristics of the material, the method needs to be adapted to become useful when working with such a versatile two-dimensional material. Fortunately, most adaptations can be made fairly easily. The timing of each step should also be considered, to ensure that the vision and guidelines can be made specific enough to be useful.

Human body temperature is an important indicator of physical performance and condition in terms of comfort, heat or cold stress. The aim of this research was to develop Temperature Sensing Fabric (TSF) for continuous temperature measurement in healthcare applications. The study covers the development and manufacture of TSF by embedding fine metallic wire into the structure of textile material using a commercial computerised knitting machine. The operational principle of TSF is based on the inherent propensity of a metal wire to respond to changes in temperature with variation in its electrical resistance. Over 60 TSF samples were developed with combinations of different sensing elements, two inlay densities and highly textured polyester yarn as the base material. TSF samples were created using either bare or insulated wires with a range of diameters from 50 to 150 μm and metal wires of nickel, copper, tungsten, and nickel coated copper. In order to investigate the Temperature-Resistance (T-R) relationship of TSF samples for calibration purposes, a customised test rig was developed and monitoring software was created in the LabVIEW environment, to record the temperature and resistance signals simultaneously. TSF samples were tested in various thermal environments, under laboratory conditions and in practical wear trials, to analyse the relationship between the temperature and resistance of the sensing fabric and to develop base line specifications such as sensitivity, resistance ratio, precision, nominal resistance, and response time; the influence of external parameters such as humidity and strain were also monitored. The regression uncertainty was found to be less than in ±0.1°C; the repeatability uncertainty was found to be less than ±0.5°C; the manufacturing uncertainty in terms of nominal resistance was found to be ± 2% from its mean. The experimental T-R relationship of TSF was validated by modelling in the thermo-electrical domain in both steady and transient states. A maximum error of 0.2°C was found between the experimental and modelled T-R relationships. TSF samples made with bare wire sensing elements showed slight variations in their resistance during strain tests, however, samples made with insulated sensing elements did not demonstrate any detectable strain-dependent-resistance error. The overall thermal response of TSF was found to be affected by basal fabric thickness and mass; the effect of RH was not found to be significant. TSF samples with higher-resistance sensing elements performed better than lower-resistance types. Furthermore, TSF samples made using insulated wire were more straightforward to manufacture because of their increased tensile strength and exhibited better sensing performance than samples made with bare wire. In all the human body wear trials, under steady-state and dynamic conditions both sensors followed the same trends and exhibited similar movement artifacts. When layers of clothing were worn over the sensors, the difference between the response of the TSF and a high-precision reference temperature were reduced by the improved isothermal conditions near the measurement site.