Design and large-scale preparation of a laminated elastic fabric with high softness and a cascading fibrous cluster structure for wearable smart bandages

Abstract

Smart elastic bandages have recently gained significant importance in developing soft wearables for healthcare applications. However, developing functional elastic bandages with high liquid management capacity and smart wearable performance is still a challenge. Herein, a stretchable laminated elastic fabric is designed and developed by constructing the cascading fibrous clusters in the thickness direction with elastic layers of Propylene-Based Elastomer (PBE) filament webs and fluffy layers with carded fibrous webs. The elastic layers with an ordered fiber arrangement and fluffy layers with large porosity are alternately layered and tightly fitted, achieving a high elastic recovery rate of 80.3%, a large compression recovery rate of 76.5%, and excellent tensile stability, thereby contributing to the embedment of sensors for monitoring human physiological signals. Moreover, this laminated elastic fabric possesses a large liquid management capacity index of 121.1, a superior softness score of 81, and a contact cool feeling coefficient of around 0.15 J (cm⁻² s⁻¹), demonstrating excellent comfort wearability features. This strategy offers a cost-effective and scalable fabrication method with superior softness and comfort, excellent liquid management capacity, and continuous real-time sensing.