Page 68 - August-September-2018

68 T-shirt instead of

Whats New Research into wearable technology began to operate touchscreens, for instance.

USB stick

draw interest over 30 years ago. Certain smart
By magnetising the yarn in the shirt sleeve, the
textiles have come into the market over the years,
particularly in the areas of medicine and sport.
researchers were able to integrate an access
Many smart textiles already available on the
be opened by moving the sleeve in front of the
market work via the integration of conventional
mobile devices. However, these inflexible
control panel. Data saved in the textile by
components oftentimes limit the functionality and code used to access security zones. Doors can
polarising the conductive yarn can be read with a
user-friendliness of the textiles and present the magnetometer. With this technology, people will
wearer with a real problem, for example when be able to carry large amounts of data directly on
cleaning. their bodies.
Researchers from the University of Washington Integrating sensors, electrically conductive yarns,
were recently successful in developing an or other unusual materials when manufacturing
intelligent textile that works without any external smart textiles creates great challenges for
power source, meaning it can be washed and stitch-creating components. Groz-Beckert
ironed: a standard shirt that functions as data provides needles and system parts for a number
storage. A conductive yarn was used for this of ambitious technologies and collaborations to
purpose, which is already used in gloves to develop and implement new ideas.

Composite bridge structures

of the length 6.6km

Russia plans to use composite materials in the design and building of some unique structures. As part of
these plans, composite bridge beams with specific weight and efficiency advantages are currently being
perfected, to be used in the building of extended-length bridges.

This offer numerous benefits, experts say, because the material is immune to both frost damage and
de-icing salts. Another benefit is significantly reduced weight. A glass fibre bridge has only about 40% of
the weight of a steel composite and less than 30% of that of a pre-stressed concrete bridge. In addition, it
can be prefabricated in significantly larger dimensions and lifted into position by crane.

Russia will be the first to achieve composite bridge structures of such length. Composite beams are the
only possible way to organise the movement of high-speed trains. Intensive efforts to develop glass fibre
composite bridges are currently underway in the US, Japan, Switzerland and the Netherlands in particular,
where they are now standard.

August/September 2018