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NISCAIR ONLINE PERIODICALS REPOSITORY (NOPR) >
NISCAIR PUBLICATIONS >
Research Journals >
Indian Journal of Fibre & Textile Research (IJFTR) >
IJFTR Vol.36 [2011] >
IJFTR Vol.36(4) [December 2011] >
| Title: | Functional clothing— Definition and classification |
| Authors: | Gupta, Deepti |
| Keywords: | Functional clothing
Medical clothing
Protective clothing
Sportswear
Technical textiles |
| Issue Date: | Dec-2011 |
| Publisher: | NISCAIR-CSIR, India |
| Abstract: | Functional clothing represents the
evolutionary segment of the technical textiles market, representing an area
where clothing crosses the conventional boundaries and integrates with the
domains of medicine, biotechnology, nanotechnology, physics and computing among
others, to meet the multifaceted and complex requirements of the user. Functional
clothing by definition is user-requirement specific and designed or engineered
to meet the performance requirements of the user under extreme conditions. A
variety of functional clothing products are available in the market as
protective clothing, medical clothing or sports clothing, even though little
information is available regarding the principles employed in their production.
Functional clothing in fact has never really been systematically defined or
classified, unlike technical textiles. In this paper, a functionality-based
classification has been proposed with six classes, comprehensively covering
most logical types of functional clothing that are in use or are under
development. Each distinct class would have similar principles governing the
design of products covered under it, even though the final products may find
application in a variety of fields, e.g. protective functional clothing may
find an application as protective military armour, as sports armour or as
protective surgical gowns for the doctors. Principles that characterize each
class and differentiate it from the others have been highlighted. As newer
technologies are being developed, new and innovative products and possibly new
classes will keep on emerging in this field to meet the requirements of
consumers. |
| Page(s): | 321-326 |
| CC License: |  CC Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India |
| ISSN: | 0975-1025 (Online); 0971-0426 (Print) |
| Source: | IJFTR Vol.36(4) [December 2011]
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