Typically, if wholesale Medical Isolation Gownmaterial is stretched in one direction, it thins out in the other; and if compressed in one direction, it thickens in the other. However, in the case of auxetic materials, the converse is true. For example, if a thin, inelastic fiber is wrapped around an elastic core and then pulled lengthwise, the elastic component bulges outwards.

This simple, elegant auxetic effect can be the basis of some revolutionary solutions for all sorts of textile applications.Zetix™ helical-auxetic fiber technology – developed in the United Kingdom by Dr. Patrick Hook, managing director, Auxetix Ltd., in collaboration with researchers at the University of Exeter and Dow Corning Ltd. – has won several awards, including the Techtextil 2007 Innovation Prize. Hook, an engineer who had been involved in the motor racing arena prior to pursuing a doctorate in engineering with a focus on auxetic materials, established Auxetix to commercializethe patented technology.

Auxetix now has granted an exclusive license to Houston-based Advanced Fabric Technologies LLC (AFT) to develop and market Zetix fabrics for use in blast-mitigation and ballistic-protection fabrics in North America, as well as first right of refusal to market and manufacture the fabrics elsewhere in the world.A test conducted by the UK Ministry of Defence compares the performance of a Zetix™ blastcurtain (left) with that of a conventional blast curtain.

“Thisis a completely new approach to material science, particularly for blast and ballistic mitigation, and we think it’s going to be a game-changing, breakthrough technology,” said Tony Lentini, AFT’s vice president of marketing.Zetix comprises a series of auxetic yarns, each yarn wrapped using S or Z twist with a high-strength cord — or “power thread,” as Lentini described it — and woven by weft insertion across the warp. Off the loom, the weft becomes the tensile element in the fabric. “When force isapplied,” Hook explained, “the auxetic yarns deform, opening thousands of small pores in the fabric’s surface. In so doing, they absorb the peak pressures from the blast wave and yet allow therest to pass through.