A Design Framework for Programmable Manufacturing of Customized Knitted Materials

编织是将纱线相互啮合成环，从而形成织物。用几种不同的纱线编织的织物构成了现代一类先进的工程材料。此外，计算机控制的针织作为一种数字制造技术提供了巨大的希望，因为它能够从多种纱线类型和不同的环纹中制造出新颖的材料。鉴于现代针织设备的巨大灵活性和现有纱线材料的多样性，针织结构现在可以被视为一个通用的、可编程的、多尺度的、基于微结构的工程材料系统，可以设计和制造以满足广泛的功能和机械要求。虽然目前的商业针织技术相当有能力为消费服装设计和制造各种材料，但存在许多重大的技术差距，阻止针织成为数字化制造的通用工艺。生产这些多功能材料系统的关键障碍是缺乏经过验证的综合设计工具和准确的预测建模方法。该项目将开发一个集成的设计框架，以解决这些障碍，从而实现定制针织材料的可编程制造。在这一领域开发先进技术，有可能在美国工业部门创造新的、重新焕发活力的经济活动，而美国工业部门近几十年来大多处于衰退状态。该项目有几个技术目标。它们是:A)创建设计框架，根据针织材料的性能要求确定纱线规格和加工命令；b)开发数据驱动算法，用于计算从低维需求空间到高维控制数据空间的逆映射，该算法利用高效的最近邻搜索和分散数据插值技术，找到可行的针织材料设计解决方案；C)定义一个能够确定针织设计要求是否被满足的目标函数，d)利用信息途径，允许在设计过程中进行反向模拟-制造-评估-验证反馈回路，e)将设计/模拟过程与实际材料的生产、测试和评估相结合，以提供加速的、可编程的制造能力，以生产新颖的、定制的针织材料。

Knitting is the intermeshing of yarns into loops that leads to the creation of fabrics. Fabrics knitted with several different yarns constitute a modern class of advanced engineering materials. Additionally, computer-controlled knitting offers great promise as a digital manufacturing technology because of the ability to make novel materials from multiple yarn types and varying loop patterns. Given the enormous flexibility of modern knitting equipment and the variety of yarn materials currently available, knitted structures can now be viewed as a versatile, programmable, multi-scale and microstructure-based engineering material system that can be designed and manufactured to meet a wide range of functional and mechanical requirements. While the current state of the art in commercial knitting technology is quite capable of designing and manufacturing a variety of materials for consumer clothing, many significant technological gaps exist that prevent knitting from becoming a general process for digital manufacturing. The critical barrier to the production of these versatile material systems is the lack of validated comprehensive design tools and accurate predictive modeling methods. This project will develop an integrated design framework that addresses these barriers in order to enable the programmable manufacturing of customized knitted materials. Developing advanced technologies in this field has the potential to create new, revitalized economic activity in an American industrial sector that has mostly known decline in recent decades. The project has several technical objectives. They are: a) the creation of a design framework that determines yarn specifications and processing commands given the performance requirements for a knitted material, b) the development of a data-driven algorithm for computing inverse mappings from low-dimensional requirements space into high-dimensional control data space that utilizes efficient nearest-neighbors search and scattered data interpolation techniques to find viable design solutions for knitted materials, c) the definition of an objective function capable of determining if knitting design requirements have been fulfilled, d) the utilization of information pathways that allow for an inverse-forward simulate-manufacture-evaluate-validate feedback loop in the design process, and e) the integration of design/simulation processes with the production, testing and evaluation of actual materials to provide an accelerated, programmable manufacturing capability for novel, customized knitted materials.