BIAXTRONIC CO opens new research opportunities. © ITA.

Technical textiles play a central role in all areas and application fields of ITA, the leading German research institution. Between 1999 and 2011 the ITA Construction Composites research group has developed as part of the Collaborative Research Centre 532 project, textile reinforcement structures for concrete structures with the help of the current in-house machine from Karl Mayer Malimo.

With the procurement of a Karl Mayer BIAXTRONIC CO high-performance warp knitting machine with course-oriented weft-insertion system, further development and production of reinforcement structures for concrete matrices are aspired to. Furthermore, ITA says, the new machine will also be used for the development of functional samples and prototypes in other application fields such as:

- Production of hybrid knitted fabric structures over a non-woven substrate

- Manufacture of unidirectional (UD) fabrics for fibre-reinforced plastics and plain knitted fabrics for thermal textiles in the mobility sector

- Reinforcement of wound dressings in the medical textiles sector

The new machine platform comes with novel features which open up new research avenues for ITA and its research partners (as depicted above).

The possibility to feed in base substrate will allow ITA to fundamentally research applications in the field of geotextiles. The fitted Karl Mayer KAMCOS Command System includes an ethernet interface for integration into an existing network, which fulfils the requirements for research topics in the field of Industry 4.0, inline quality control, sociology, networking of the process chain, and so on. The newly developed electronic guide bar control system and the possibility to vary process parameter inline will improve the product quality substantially and help in producing locally adapted tailored textiles.

ITA thrives on the development of new innovative technologies and products, which mainly result from bilateral research projects between industry and universities. Therefore, with the acquisition of the BIAXTRONIC CO, ITA says it is looking forward to undertaking collaborative projects with national and international partners in the coming years. ITA plans to unveil the BIAXTRONIC CO on 21 January 2021 and cordially invites interested partners to attend the one-day industry event in Aachen.

This acquisition of the BIAXTRONIC CO was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, project number INST 222/1264-1 FUGG. ITA extends its gratitude towards the DFG and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for their financial support.

www.ita.rwth-aachen.de