This study is an initial attempt to investigate the dialog between knitting and tufting. The approach is to experiment with different knitting techniques for different results and subsequently use the tufting as a decorative shaping tool for the knitted fabric. By using the method of trial and error, the goal was to find criteria to make the material lead. Subsequently, this study questions the common way of tufting by bringing an element of stretchy into the execution. The thesis shows the development of an alternative backing for tufting to make a wearable fabric for fashion. It was concluded that it is possible to tuft in a knitted fabric as long as the fabric has tension. The criteria for executing this method were that the knitted fabric can not be too sparsely knitted and one has to use the loop-tufting gun to be able to make stitches.

This thesis set out to address the ‘unsuccessful entrance’ experienced by the technique of tufting in the context of fashion design. The conventions of industrial tufting methods are challenged in the field of contemporary couture with a focus on three different aspects: backing, raw material and technique. This traditional carpet making technique, presented through the concept of couture, is aimed to be introduced as a potential novel technique among the other artisan ones inherent to the field. Robot tufting has until now been exclusively employed by the carpet manufacturing industry and only two robot manufacturing companies operate worldwide. It is a research subject with no previous academic or artistic publications. This thesis introduces for the very first time the concept and technique of robot tufting in the field of fashion design for the potential future garment creation. A more profound exploration of tufting in the context of fashion design requires a fusion of fashion and textile design into a one hybrid practice with a cross-disciplinary approach. Alongside challenging the conventions of tufting, the conventions of old disciplinary boundaries are aimed to be challenged.

This work began as an investigation of tufting within fashion design. It is in- teresting because there is a lack of tufting within fashion design, especially of long tufted fringes. How can a technique that is usually used for interior design, for example rugs, be brought successfully into a fashion context? The question how to create longer fringes than usual for tufting emerged after experiments made in various materials. In order for the machine to create long fringes, lighter materials like plastic were tested and also differ- ent ways of using the machine. Since the tufted expression became very organic with the long plastic fringes, tufted try-outs were made in geometric shapes to see what hap- pened at the front of the garment. Would the geometric shape totally disappear? It was decided to take the plastic material further together with more tra- ditional materials for tufting like wool and linen, in order to get the expres- sion of both lengths and materials in the fringes and to investigate how they could be combined in interesting ways on the human body. During the way it was found that the long plastic fringes together with the traditional materials needed a flat contrast, and that is when the plain tuft- ing weave was introduced as an important part of the garment with differ- ent placements of the tufted areas, which give great shape and volume to the garments. There are great possibilities to find new expressions through tufting with long fringes within fashion design, shown in this work. If the technique is developed with fashion in mind, could it be a technique used to replace parts of the fur industry? / Program: Modedesignutbildningen

This work is about getting to know tufting as a technique and to design tufted products for home furnishing. It all began in Finland, where during springtime 2004, I got in contact with the technique of tufting for the first time. A very pleasant meeting that resulted in two carpets and a longing to continue and learn more. It was then that an idea for my final project started to take form. My wish was to design tufted “floor jewelleries” and cushions. I made a base for my project during a design project in autumn 2004. During a stay in New York I got inspired partly from colours and shapes from the Bauhaus movement, partly from the architecture of the city. The geometric forms associated to Bauhaus spoke to me. In New York I got fascinated of the lines and surfaces next to each other on the front of the buildings. The small details were important to the entire impression. The amazing perspectives were also very inspiring. It was a great feeling glancing up buildings that had no end and above all looking down on the top of the buildings and on the streets from the top of Empire state building. The collected material from the design project was then put together with impressions of Swedish nature. So I got the inspiration material that had feeling that was hard, soft, warm, cold, powerful, and fragile. Those emotions have been important to ad to the tufted carpets. Wool was chosen to give the felling of warmth and linen to ad shine. The smooth materials made a nice complement to the strict geometric forms. The group of tufted products contain one big pillow for the floor, seven decorative cushions and four carpets. The pillow for the floor becomes a plain and soft piece of furniture, strict in black and white. The decorative cushion is more colourful and finds its place on a sofa or armchair. The carpets are small and easy to place as “jewelleries” next to or in front of a piece of furniture, on their own, several together, but never with furniture on top. The tufted products fit in both small and big rooms. The little scale makes it easy to change and intensify the expression in a home environment. Through my choice of material I want to give the products a long lifetime. This partly has been a part of the esthetical expression. I have also considered nearby production and ecological alternatives in my choices of materials. A timeless form and colour scale makes the products stand outside trends. That gives the products sustainability and they can be a part of the home for a very long time. The carpets are industrially tufted at Hitex and the cushions are made by me, tufted by hand at Konstnärernas Kollektivverkstad in Gothenburg. An important part of the work was to tuft myself and get a feeling for all the possibilities in that specific technique. / <p>Program: Textildesignutbildningen</p><p>Uppsatsnivå: C</p>

This project is about exploring a textile surface with the design elements of sound, physical contact and tactility. It is interesting to analyse how audio and physical elements can help stimulate the human senses. The aim is to bring these elements into a design context and create a textile surface that can give people a sensory and spatial experience. Through tufting it is possible to work with long and short pile, which adds tactile values in the material. The outcome of this exploration is a vast tufted landscape that partly covers the wall and continues out on the floor. The surface has an abstract visual appearance with irregular shapes that defines the different material. The large scale has an overwhelming effect and invites people to interact and explore the surface. This challenges the fundamental structures of architecture and increases the importance of tactile and human senses, such as curiosity in spatial environments

Ces travaux de thèse s’inscrivent dans un contexte écologique visant à réduire l’impact environnemental et notamment la pollution des transports aériens. Celui-ci pousse les avionneurs à utiliser des matériaux composites pour des pièces structurelles afin de réduire la masse des aéronefs. Certaines de ces pièces sont particulièrement exposées aux impacts en vol : débris, oiseau, et grêle. Ce type de sollicitation est dans la plupart des cas générateur de délaminage. Or l’étendue de ce type d’endommagement n’est pas détectable lors d’une simple inspection visuelle. Il convient donc de trouver des solutions visant à réduire sa propagation. L’objectif de ces travaux est ainsi d’évaluer l’apport d’un renforcement de type tufting pour la limitation du délaminage mais également pour l’augmentation de la résistance à l’impact. Ce type de renforcement est inspiré des techniques de coutures de l’industrie textile. L’évaluation d’une telle solution nécessitait un banc d’essai adapté aux phénomènes à observer. Un lanceur à gaz à été conçu et développé ainsi que l’instrumentation associée. Les essais d'impacts ont été menés sur différentes configurations de tufting pour lesquelles nous avons fait varier : le pas, la section de fil, le matériau constituant le fil et enfin la densité surfacique de renfort. La gamme de vitesse d’impact est comprise entre 60 et 150 m.s-1. Les énergies absorbées pour chaque configuration ont été mesurées et comparées. Elles ont permis d’esquisser des tendances concernant l'effet des paramètres de tufting sur la résistance à l’impact de ces matériaux. Une méthode d’analyse de la propagation du délaminage a ensuite été développée. Elle a l’avantage de permettre la visualisation du délaminage interlaminaire pour chaque interface, et est donc plus riche que les techniques de contrôle non destructif classiques. L’effet du tufting, et de ses paramètres, sur l’étendue du délaminage a pu être mis en avant. Cette analyse a permis de mettre en évidence des directions préférentielles de propagation qui dépendent à la fois de la séquence d’empilement et de l’armure du tissu utilisé. Une loi de propagation du délaminage fonction de la direction des fibres adjacentes aux interfaces a ensuite été développée à l’aide d’essais de ténacité en mode I et II. Celle-ci a enfin été implémentée dans un modèle d’impact par éléments finis / Economic and ecological contexts impose aircraft manufacturers to find short-term solutions to reduce fuel consumption. For years they have tended to replace metallic structural frames with state-of-the-art composite materials. Some parts such as aircraft engine inlets are however exposed to ice and bird impacts but are also affected by low-energy impacts that could happen during maintenance operations. Yet laminated composites have poor resistance to delamination, which is the main damage genera- ted during impact events. Delamination is known to reduce the post-impact integrity of a structure and is not easy to detect. It is thus necessary to find solutions to re- duce its propagation. The goal of this work is therefore to evaluate the ability of a z-reinforcement technique – the tufting – to contain delamination but also to increase impact resistance. This technique is based on textile sewing techniques. A new ballistic bench with associated sensors has been developed for this study. It allows to carry out impact tests at speeds up to 200 m.s-1 with a 250 g projectile. These tests were carried out for different tufting configurations applied to the same reference material. The tufting parameters were: the pitch, the thread section, the thread material and the areal tufting density. The impact velocities were 60, 80, 110 and 150 m.s-1. Absorbed energies were measured and compared for all configurations. They allowed to draw trends about the effects of tufting parameters on impact resistance. The perforated specimens were then inspected with an original technique allowing the observation of interlaminar delamination area for each interface. The effects of tufting on damage tolerance have therefore been highlighted. It has also revealed the existence of preferential propagation direction of delamination. These directions depend on the stacking sequence and on the fabric architecture. A propagation law for delamination has been developed as a function of the direction of the fiber directions of the adjacent plies. This law has at the end been implemented into a finite element analysis model

This project combines industrial tuft with handmade embroidery in order to explore various combinations of textured surfaces, materials and colors. The purpose is to investigate a meeting between craft and design by focusing on the encounter between the compact and the loose, the assembly of materials, as well as variations in levels and heights. The works are mainly based on recycled materials. Three textiles pieces were designed: a First Piece focuses on the meeting between craft and design; the Second Piece relates to different textures and the Third Piece addresses growth. The combination of hand embroidery and tufting create diversity and nuances in expressions, forms and textures. The small-scale of hand-embroidery permits the use of materials difficult or impossible to handle in machines and thus break the monotony of tuft. Through the tufting technique, larger compact pieces are produced that have depth and are sound-absorbent. This project aims to create a bridge between craft and design in the field of textile design.

Les matériaux composites 3D obtenus par couture ou piquage transverses présentent de nombreux atouts comparativement aux tissages interlocks ou orthogonaux 3D. Dans le but d’évaluer le potentiel de cette nouvelle génération de matériaux 3D, certaines études ont été consacrées à leur caractérisation mécanique. D’autres études se sont focalisées sur l’influence de certains types de coutures sur la perméabilité de matériaux cousus de type NCF (Non Crimp Fabrics). Cette thèse se propose d’étudier l’apport des coutures de type Tufting dans le renforcement transverse de tissus classiques 2D. Cet apport est évalué, conjointement, du point de vue mécanique et du point de vue de la perméabilité. Parmi les nombreux paramètres de couture, l’étude s’est focalisée sur l’influence de la densité de couture. A ce titre, trois différentes densités de coutures ont été réalisées, grâce à un robot de couture disponible au sein de notre laboratoire. Du point de vue de la perméabilité, les préformes cousues ont été réalisées avec des empilements identiques à ceux des préformes non cousues. L’évaluation des perméabilités a été conduite à travers un banc de mesure de perméabilité à flux unidirectionnel. Avec cette méthode, le tenseur de perméabilité plane est obtenu à travers trois mesures unidirectionnelles : 0° (chaine), 90° (trame) et 45°. L’analyse des résultats montre que la couture de type Tufting induit un effet atténuateur du rapport d’anisotropie K1/K2. D’autre part, il ressort que la position du fil de couture provoque des gradients de perméabilités locaux, très prononcés entre la surface et le cœur de la préforme. Pour les besoins de la caractérisation mécanique, six plaques composites ont été réalisées par le procédé RTM. Pour atteindre les caractéristiques mécaniques hors-plan, des plaques de 20 mm d’épaisseur, cousues et non cousues ont été réalisées. La CIN (Corrélation d’Image Numérique) a été utilisée pour cartographier les distributions des champs de déplacement lors des essais mécaniques (traction, compression sur cube et flexion en poutre courte), ceci afin de tenir compte de la présence des coutures au sein des matériaux. Les performances mécaniques évaluées se sont révélées bien en deçà des attentes, surtout en ce qui concerne les caractéristiques hors-plan. L’analyse micrographique des matériaux a révélé la présence de porosités concentrées au sein, ou dans le voisinage proche, des coutures. D’autre part, les coutures présentaient des courbures ou vrillages, provoquées par le compactage lors de la fermeture du moule RTM.En faisant le lien avec les résultats de perméabilité, il ressort que la présence des porosités au sein des coutures est une conséquence des gradients de perméabilité qui induisent des refermetures de flux d’imprégnation. / 3D composite materials, which obtained by stitching or tufting, have many advantages compared to the 3D orthogonal weaves or interlocks. ln order to evaluate the potential of this new generation of 3D materials, some studies have been devoted to their mechanical properties. Other studies have focused on the influence of certain types of seams on the permeability of materials such as NCF (Non Crimp Fabrics).This thesis is to study the contribution of seams through the thickness of reinforcement 2D classic fabrics. This contribution is evaluated the mechanical properties and their permeability at the same time. Among many stitching parameters, the study focused on the influence of the stitching density. Three different seams densities were carried out through a robot available in our laboratory.ln terms of permeability, the stitched preforms were laminated those of identical unstitched preforms by using Tufting.The evaluation of permeability was conducted in an unsaturated regime through a small scale bench test by the unidirectional flow. With this method, the in-plane permeability tensor is obtained through the measured permeability in three directions : 0° (warp), 90° (weft) and 45°. The results show that the type of Tufting seams reduces the effect of anisotropy ratio Kl/K2. And it is obvious that the position of the stitching thread causes local permeability gradients very pronouncedly between the heart and the surface of the preform. For the purposes of the mechanical properties, six composite plates were made by the RTM process. To achieve mechanical properties through the thickness of the plates of 20 mm thick, stitched and unstitched performed were prepared. DIC (Digital Image Correlation) was used to detect the distribution of displacement fields during mechanical testing (tensile, compression and short bearn bending) in order to take account of the presence of seams within materials. The measured mechanical performance proved below expectations, particularly with regard to the characteristics in the third direction. Micrographie analysis of materials revealed the presence of porosity concentrated within, or near the seams. Moreover, the bends or kinks of seams were caused by compaction during closure of the RTM mold. By connecting with the permeability data, it appears that the presence of porosities in the seams is a consequence ofpermeability gradients that induce impregnation flow reclosing.

“Electrostatic textile surfaces” is a design example of surfaces which have the ability to interact to human action by movement. The design exploration was directed by the intention of achieving movement through static electricity. During this project textile techniques such as weaving and hand-tufting have been explored in combination with unconventional materials and functions and used as methods to design the surfaces. The findings from the design process regard the categorization of the yarns through the material exploration, the development of a design method through the experimentation of the technique and the surface appearance through the materialization of the method. The two final surfaces are exhibited horizontally and vertically in relation to the ground. The scale of the final structures is related to the body scale. One can electrify the surfaces by walking around or through them letting an open dialog to take place depended on personal interpretations. / Program: Master Programme in Fashion and Textile Design

This thesis aims to establish a greater understanding of the effects of the single-sided robotic tufting process on component manufacturing costs and weight, and subsequently determine whether potential economic benefits can be realised through its implementation. To complete this assessment, the study uses the novel composite rib post application of the Next Generation Composite Wing (NGCW) project as an example case, investigating the component’s manufacturing cost, performance and weight relative to those of a non-tufted rib post with the same initial fabric layup, and a prepreg rib post with the same fibre orientation and fibre volume fraction. Detailed analyses of the tufted composite rib post manufacturing process have established the relationships between its manufacturing activities and the consumed resources, facilitating the creation of a novel cost model incorporating algorithms defining the robotic tufting process, which may be adapted for different geometries and tuft parameters. In addition, novel permeability data for the considered tufted preform have been obtained experimentally allowing the simulation of the liquid composite manufacturing process. The insertion of tufting in the studied arrangement was shown to decrease the in-plane permeability of the preform, reducing the characteristic by a factor of 3.5 in the direction perpendicular to the tuft seams, and 1.8 in the direction parallel. Completing structural analyses and further cost modelling, the study considers the manufacturing costs and weight of each of the studied components when performance is normalised. Implementing weight penalties including lifetime fuel consumption and lifetime revenue, appreciation is given to the potential lifetime costs generated by each of the structural solutions. Comparing the amalgamated costs of each component, relative economy has been evaluated both when considering equipment amortisation and also the use of pre-amortised equipment. Considering lifetime fuel cost/kg as the weight penalty, the novel composite rib post has greater economy within the pure pull-off load case without tufting due to its lower manufacturing costs. However, with the consideration of a more significant weight penalty, such as potential increased lifetime revenue, the use of the novel composite rib post results in superior economy, its lifetime cost/part is estimated to be 14% less than the component without tufting and 61% less than the lifetime cost/part of the prepreg component. Critical evaluations of the project’s methodologies have highlighted the various assumptions made due to the limitations of available information and means to perform certain validations. Under these circumstances the assumptions are believed to be the best representations of what is experienced in reality. As far as possible, errors believed to be the result of assumptions have been accounted for in rigorous error analyses to establish their propagation through the various calculations performed. These analyses have provided confidence in the results of the study, ensuring the significance of the determined economical differences between the investigated components.