Textiles: from twisted yarn to topology and mechanics

TL;DR

This review explores the symmetry, topology, and mechanics of textiles, highlighting their unique properties as complex mechanical metamaterials and their under-explored regime in condensed matter physics.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the construction, topology, and mechanics of woven and knitted textiles, emphasizing their topological and geometric characteristics.

Findings

Textiles can be characterized as knots and links in a thickened torus.

Recent developments in twisted bundle structures of yarns.

Analysis of fabric mechanics through yarn-level geometry and defect structures.

Abstract

While textiles have existed throughout much of human history as complex mechanical metamaterials, textile science has largely been overlooked by the physics community until recently. In this review, we consider the symmetry, topology, and mechanics of woven and knitted materials, showing that they represent a unique, if under-explored, regime of condensed matter. We start with the basic construction and mechanics of spun yarn, reviewing recent developments twisted bundle structures. We then introduce woven and knitted fabrics as materials with layer symmetries that can be topologically characterized as knots and links in the thickened torus. We finally discuss fabric mechanics and geometry in terms of yarn-level geometry, dissipation mechanisms, and defect structures.