Thermal microclimate investigation of smart knitted shoe soles for pressure sensing applications: a promising methodology for tailorable attributes

In the modern era, there has been a significant interest in intelligent materials. Smart textiles’ capacity to be employed primarily in healthcare settings for pressure-sensing applications has increased their popularity; however, the thermal microclimate is not being significantly focused. The primary goal of this research is to analyze the thermal microclimate of knitted shoe soles developed using a variety of materials and knitted structures. Acrylic and silver-coated polyamide yarn have been used to develop textile structures, including single jersey, honeycomb, double pique, cross miss, birds eye, and pique. The knitted materials varied in their combination of knit, tuck, and miss stitches. Dry fluids transmission, wet fluids transmission, and heat retention capabilities of specimens have been analyzed to investigate the thermal microclimate. Static charge and electrical resistance tests were used to evaluate the pressure-sensing performance. Overall, the honeycomb construction performed better in terms of thermal comfort attributes. A similar trend was observed for pressure sensing performance, in which fabrics composed of tuck and miss stitches showed efficient pressure sensing owing to fewer yarn bending points in the structure. The data were also analyzed statistically by performing the analysis of variance test in which the significance of studied input variables was obtained with P values less than 0.05.