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Drexel's TopoKnit System for Alchemie’s new Novara precision

Functional Fabrics digital finishing solution offers

85% energy savings

A team of researchers at Drexel University is To put TopoKnit to the test, researchers worked with
translating the loops and twists of knitting into digital research partners and designers at Drexel's Centre
architecture as a key step in the process of for Functional Fabrics to generate a series of 100 DAlchemie Technology, based in Cambridge, UK, says sided application. The technology enables high-value
incorporating new technologies such as electronic patterns of 5x5 stitch configurations using the its new Novara precision digital finishing solution can finishes to be used cost-effectively.
circuits into textiles. The piece introduced TopoKnit, graphical interface on one of the center's digital help European textile manufacturers save more than
a suite of algorithms they developed as a tool for knitting machines. The same stitch commands in the €1 million a year and return to profitability as energy The power and gas prices are increasing globally,
modeling the path of yarn within a knitted textile. machine were also entered into TopoKnit to produce prices surge across the continent. Novara uses high resulting in additional costs during finishing. For
While it does not solve the entire modeling a topology graph. The team compared each graph velocity jetting technology to apply nano-droplets of example, EU gas prices soared throughout 2021 – and
challenge, the program does provide an essential to its corresponding graphic rendering to see if the functional finishes, only where needed, on fabrics, have risen even more sharply due to the conflict in
element of the design process: documentation of stitch map matched the rendered model. The using 85% less energy and up to 50% less chemistry Ukraine, which has sparked fresh concerns about
how parts come together to make a finished piece, graphs were an exact match in each case, showing compared to traditional methods. Traditional textile global energy supplies. The European gas price has
the equivalent of a blueprint in architecture. that the TopoKnit system could be used to reliably finishing is an energy-intensive process that applies risen from €16 a year ago to a peak of €142 per MWh
produce manufacturing instructions for knit textiles liquid finishes by immersing the whole fabric in a on March 1st. It requires over 2 kWh per kg of material
One of the most significant barriers to full integration via a sequence of steps that produces specific yarn chemical bath and adding around 80% water by mass to dry fabrics that have been through a padding bath.
of technology into textiles and the broader retail topologies. These topologies – descriptions of how to the fabric, which needs to be dried. However, Alchemie estimates that spiraling gas costs have
adoption of smart fabrics is that current software the yarns contact and interconnect with each other – Novara precision digital finishing is a low-energy, increased the annual energy costs for a typical EU
used for textiles' industrial design and production allow the system to flag stitch patterns in a design single-sided application system that enables textile finishing operation by over €1 million a year.
lacks the thread-level detail necessary for the digital that would not be viable in production, which is an functional finishes to be applied at up to 20 times the However, Novara has got you covered with its
sampling and precision manufacturing of fabric important step for prototyping. concentration of traditional processes – with a more cutting-edge technology. There is also a significant
devices. TopoKnit translates stitch commands, such even application and higher quality. This results in sustainability benefit to the Novara system. The energy
as knit, purl, and transfer, as they would appear in a Building on the topology framework provided by energy savings of up to 85%. Novara is suitable for savings correspond to around 1 kg CO2 per kg in
knitting pattern, or the program of a digital knitting TopoKnit, the next step for this research is to applying a wide range of finishes, including reduced carbon emissions. The EU alone produces
machine, into a map that shows where the yarn optimize the shape and behaviors of knitted textiles. waterproofing, stain resistance, self-cooling, fire around 130,000 tons of technical textiles fabric per
travels, loop by loop, and how it interacts with Ensuring accuracy and modeling the shape will retardant, metallics / visual effects, and antiviral. year, and switching to Novara technology would
adjacent loops as the textile is formed. The resulting prime computer programs to meticulously Flexibility for precision delivery of a wide range of reduce more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide
diagram, called a topology graph, allows designers reproduce the mechanical properties of textiles and finishes for technical textiles with 2D patterning and emissions
to pinpoint where a piece of yarn is, for the overall ultimately direct knitting machines to produce textiles
plane of the textile, at any given point within it. with specific performance capabilities.

March/April 2022 March/April 2022