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Paper
On
“Innovations In Fibre –
Auxetic Fibre”
- Submitted By -
Mr. Amit M. Saharkar
(Final year Textile Engg.)
saharkaramit1@gmail.com
1. Abstract
When a material is stretched there is an accompanying reduction in width. A measure of
this dimensional change can be defined by Poisson’s ratio, ν = -εx/εy. For many materials this
value is positive and reflects a need to conserve volume. Auxetic materials, those with a negative
Poisson ratio (NPR), display the unexpected property of lateral expansion when stretched, with
an equal and opposing densification when compressed. Commonly, the tensile strength and
modulus of these polymers is poor. The problem here is one of scale: an open microscopic
structure confers inferior mechanical properties. To impart superior mechanical properties,
auxetic structure must exist at the molecular level. We aim to advance scientific understanding
of molecular-level NPR effects. This molecular approach should overcome property limitations
inherent in existing polymers with auxetic microstructures. Initially, we will address the
molecular-level requirements for auxetic fibers that may ultimately furnish a man-made material
suitable for extrusion and spinning on a commercial scale. These auxetic textiles are used in
many areas like biomedical field, filters, piezoelectric sensors and actuators, medical field, seat
belts and safety harness in automobiles, ballistic protection, reinforcement composites and etc.
Auxetic meaning and its various structures and its various applications are explained in detail in
this poster.
2. Introduction
Modern technology requires new materials of special properties. One of the reasons for
interest in materials of unusual mechanical properties comes from the fact that they can be used
as matrices to form composites with other materials of other required properties, e.g. electric,
magnetic, etc. A new field of endeavour is to study materials exhibiting negative Poisson’s ratio
(NPR). Large-scale cellular structures with NPR property were first realized in 1982 in the form
of two-dimensional silicone rubber or aluminium honeycombs deforming by flexure of the ribs.
In 1987, Lakes1 first developed the NPR polyurethane foam with re-entrant structure. This
polymeric foam had a Poisson’s ratio of -0.7. These new types of materials were named auxetics
by Evans2, which, in contrast to conventional materials (like rubber, glass, metals, etc.), expand
transversely when pulled longitudinally and contract transversely when pushed longitudinally.
“Auxetics” comes from the Greek word auxetos, meaning “that which may be increased”. In this
report, the term ‘auxetic’ will be used.
People have known about auxetic materials for over 100 years, but have not given them
much attention. This type of material can be found in some rock and minerals, even animal such
as the skin covering a cow’s teats. To date, a wide variety of auxetic materials has been
fabricated, including polymeric and metallic foams, micro porous polymers, carbon fibre
laminates and honeycomb structures. A typical example is a well-known synthetic polymer-
polytetrafluorothylene (PTFE), which has been in use for many years. Other materials possess
the NPR property such as micro porous ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE),
polypropylene (PP), several types of rocks. However, their special characteristics are largely
ignored. Only up until recently, Lakes, Evans and other scientists’ work has attracted more
attention to these auxetic materials.
These auxetic materials are of interest due to the possibility of enhanced mechanical
properties such as shear modulus, plane strain fracture toughness and indentation resistance.
Therefore, studying these non-conventional materials is indeed important from the point of view
of fundamental research and possibly practical applications, particularly in medical, aerospace
and defence industries. In fact, some materials with such anomalous (i.e. NPR) properties have
been used in applications such as pyrolytic graphite for thermal protection in aerospace, large
single crystals of Ni3Al in vanes for aircraft gas turbine engines, and so on.
Figure 1. Dimensional response in a conventional and auxetic material when a tensile force is
applied
This behavior originates from particular structural characteristics on the cellular level that
give rise to the unfolding of basic structural elements upon stretching and folding back in upon
compression.
Besides the elementary scientific importance of imparting such a fundamental property, a
negative Poisson ratio can give a material many exceptional benefits:
• Increased stiffness[2],
• Increased indentation resistance[3] and
• An ability to form synclastic doubly curved surfaces[4].
Although a few auxetics have been discovered in both natural (some minerals, select
skins[5],bone[6], α-cristobalite[7]) and man-made materials (foams[3,8] certain micro porous
polymers[9], Gore-Tex®[10] and nodular PE[11]) an NPR is still a very rare feature for
conventional materials.
Figure 4 shows the variation in width plotted against length variation for two
polypropylene (PP) fibres stretched axially. Fibre 1 is a conventional PP fibre and shows a
contraction in width as it is extended, corresponding to a positive Poisson’s ratio (ν). Fibre 2 is
processed using extruder temperatures, which lead to the nodule-fibril microstructure. Its width
now increases upon stretching - it displays auxetic behavior [12].
For auxetic honeycombs, which are a special subset of auxetic materials, the NPR effect
is due to the geometric layout of the unit cell microstructure, leading to a global stiffening effect
in many mechanical properties such as in-plane indentation resistance, transverse shear modulus
and bending stiffness [2]. Figure 5 shows the deformation mechanism of the auxetic
honeycombs along with conventional honeycomb structure. For a conventional hexagonal
geometry (Figure 5 (a)), under the stretch in the y direction the cells elongate along the y-axis
and close up in the x direction, leading to a positive Poisson’s ratio. However, for an auxetic
structure, the cells undergo elongation both parallel and perpendicular to the direction of the
applied load, shone in figure 5(b).
6. Molecular-Based Of Auxetics
Recent attention has focused on the theoretical design and synthesis of auxetic structures
on a molecular scale. We suggest that a liquid crystalline (LC) polymer might exhibit an auxetic
response if transverse rigid rods are incorporated in the main chain. A unique feature of liquid
crystalline polymers is the tendency for the transverse rods in the un-stretched state to orient
themselves roughly parallel to each other and to the terminally attached LC rods [1]. Upon
stretching, the rigid rods should reorient themselves while retaining site-connectivity to give a
significant increase in the transverse dimension of the stretched polymer chain (figure 8) [1].
The accompanying increase in inter-chain spacing upon stretching should lead to an
auxetic response. It is apparent that oligo-paraphenyls should be suitable for this purpose, and
ter-, quater- and penta-phenyls are good candidates [1]. Their initial approach is to create a main-
chain LC polymer consisting of both terminally attached liquid crystalline rods with ter-phenyl
and ultimately even longer pent phenyl rods capable of a full 90° transverse re-orientation upon
stretching [1].
Figure 8.Terminally Attached Transverse Rods Pre-aligned with surrounding liquid crystal
field (top) Re-oriented with a lateral expansion upon stretching (bottom)
We have reported liquid crystalline polymers containing laterally attached ter phenyls
[14]. Due to the specific chemistry and the attachment sites on the central phenyl ring, these ter
phenyls make a 60° angle with the polymer main-chain when the polymer is fully stretched - this
is the maximum limit for rotation of the laterally attached rods. We have also seen a class of
polymer consisting of longer laterally attached p-quarter phenyl rods that could rotate to a
maximum of 75° with respect to polymer main-chain when the polymer chain is fully stretched
and could push the neighboring chains further apart[15]. Figure 9 shows the orientation between
unique attachment sites of the terminally attached rods to the flexible spacer. In both approaches,
we successfully produced simple fibres from a co-polymer designed by this molecular approach.
These showed that laterally attached ter phenyl rods incorporated into their main chain gave an
increase in inter-chain distances when their fibres were stretched a prerequisite for our auxetic
design.
Figure 9.Progressive improvements in transverse-rod site connectivity from a lateral 1, 4-
phenylene and 2,2’-biphenyl connectivity to a terminal 1,3-resorcinol (or isophthalate)
connection
The maximum extension capable from these laterally attached rods was 60° and 75°,
respectively, when stretched; the majority likely giving statistically smaller re-orientations
anywhere within this distribution span [1]. We now know from these results that much larger
reorientations are now necessary. The improved design we now propose, will exploit terminally
attached p-terphenyl and even longer p-pentaphenyl rods capable of a 90° re-orientation when
stretched (Figure 10)[1].
Figure 10. Representation of proposed auxetic target polymer structure showing resorcinol-
based terphenyl auxogens (R = H, n-Pr, CN, CF3, SiMe3, Ph) with spacer chemistry that may
be methylene (X = CH2), ethylene oxide (X = O), or siloxane
(X = Si(CH3)2OSi) based.
• Window-protection
Recent terrorist threats have renewed concerns about the protection offered to our
buildings both domestically and internationally [16]. One issue that has received a lot of
attention in recent years is the hazard posed by flying window glass. Typically more than 80% of
deaths and serious injuries are caused by flying debris. Blast curtains can be used to significantly
reduce the number of casualties caused by this during a terrorist strike. Auxetic has developed a
range of blast-fabrics that can be used for window-protection [16].
7.9 Structure
The counterintuitive property of auxetic materials, namely, lateral expansion
(compression) under longitudinal tensile (compression) loads, is essential from the point of view
of modern technology. Many applications for auxetic materials have been designed in various
fields of human activity, from vascular implants, strain sensors, shock and sound absorbers,
"press-fit" fasteners, gaskets and air filters, to fillings for highway joints. Materials containing
inclusions of negative stiffness constitute another class of systems with unusual mechanical
properties [16]. The recent interest in such systems has its origin in their very high damping
properties. The mechanical properties of auxetic honeycombs are highly sensitive to the
microstructure unit cell geometric parameters. This is a feature that could be used to design
optimized sandwich structures for various applications. As an example, regular hexagonal
honeycombs do not excel in sound absorption applications. Selected combinations of
microstructure properties of auxetic honeycombs have been proven to increase the transmission
loss factors inside cylindrical shells. Wave dispersion properties can also be custom tuned by
varying the auxetic microstructure layout [16].
8. Limitations
As stated above, auxetic materials potentially have many applications, because of their
wonderful properties compared to conventional (i.e. non-auxetic) materials. However, they also
have their own limitations like other materials.
The special micro structural features for auxetic materials need space to allow the
“hinges” to flex, or the “nodules” to spread out. The materials often need substantial porosity.
Therefore, materials with negative Poisson’s ratio are substantially less stiff than the solids from
which they are made and this causes limitations on the structural applications of the materials
with negative Poisson’s ratio. For example, they are normally not stiff enough or not dense
enough for load-bearing applications.
9. Conclusion
Auxetics are having specialty in their nature, even though these are the nature’s wealth,
today research & development is going on for mimicking these structures. The advantages in this
negative poison’s ratio material are showing the several applications in various fields. Today so
many researches are going on around the world. Hope for the success in those projects and that
will show the new views to the conventional world.
10. Reference
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Engineered from Molecular Auxetic Polymers”, NTC Project: M04-GT21, National Textile Center
Research Briefs – Materials Competency: June 2005.
2. K.E. Evans, Chem. Ind. 1990, 20, 654-657.
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4. R.S. Lakes, Science, 1987, 235, 1038-1040.
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to Aerospace and Defence (DSTO-GD-0472)”, Australian Govt. Dept. of Defence Science and
Technology Organisation.
13. Naveen Ravirala, Kim L. Alderson, Philip J. Davies, Virginia R. Simkins and Andrew Alderson1,
“Negative Poisson’s Ratio Polyester Fibers”, Textile Research Journal, Centre for Materials Research
& Innovation, University of Bolton, Deane Road, Bolton, BL3 5AB, UK.
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16.http://www.auxetic.com