**8. Conclusions**

**6.5. Medical applications**

128 Non-woven Fabrics

**6.6. Sports applications**

knitting and nonwoven technology.

Two- and three-dimensional fiber based structures are used in protective medical apparel such as baby diapers, feminine hygiene products, adult incontinence items, dry and wet pads, nursing pads or nasal strips, operation drapes, gowns and packs, face masks, surgical dress‐ ings. Two- and three-dimensional woven, braid, warp knitted and nonwoven structures find also more functional applications as in vascular prosthesis due to good mechanical properties and better ingrowth of tissue to seal the prosthesis walls, grafts for inborn vessel anomaly or arteriosclerotic damage, soft tissue such as skin and cartilage, artificial tendons and ligaments, wound dressing, absorbable and non-absorbable sutures, stents, tissue engineering scaffolds as to repair or regenerate tissues through combinations of implanted cells-biomaterial scaffolds-biologically active molecules, blood filters, plasters, compression bandages, surgical hosiery, and hospital bedding. It was also demonstrated that 2D and 3D fabrics are dimen‐ sionally stable, have similar mechanical properties with human organs and are biocompatible [57, 87, 149]. Recently, 2D nanofiber-based nonwoven fabrics are considered to be used in wound healing, artificial organ components and tissue engineering and implant materials.

Two- and three-dimensional woven and braided composite structures are employed in various sports especially golf, baseball and tennis. The specific applications are roller blades, bike frames, golf stick, tennis rackets, baseball stick, ski and surf equipment and footwear. Threedimensional warp knitted spacer fabrics are also extensively used in both sports shoes and garments due to its lightweight, springiness, washability and air permeability properties [149].

Two- and three-dimensional textile fabrics are increasingly utilized technical textile areas from garments to structural load-bearing materials for various industries such as aerospace, defense, civil engineering, and transportation industries [150]. Novel fabric formation techniques are also being developed from the fundamental methods like weaving, braiding,

The 2D nonwoven fabric is the basic planar sheet material that can be produced by various methods including needling, stitching, hydroentanglement, spunbonding, meltblown and electrospinning techniques. In addition, 3D nonwoven fabric serves as a thick fabric structure with various uses and is fabricated by needling, stitching and electrospinning techniques. More development on nonwoven technology is expected with the evolution of electrospinning process to make nano-fiber-based nonwoven planar sheet or 3D entangled fabrics. This will open up new opportunities especially in medical and hygiene applications. Furthermore, the use of bioactive and alloy fibers in nonwoven materials produced by needlepunching or hydroentanglement improves the performance of hygiene nonwoven materials from many aspects such as absorbency, thermo-physical and comfort properties, prevention of crossinfection of diseases and suppression of the generation of unpleasant odors. The reliability and

**7. Future trend and technology nonwoven fabrics**

Two and three-dimensional fabric architectures and fabrication techniques have been re‐ viewed. Two dimensional woven, braided, knitted and nonwoven fabrics have been widely used as various structural composite parts in civilian and defense related areas. However, composite structure from biaxial layered fabrics is prone to delamination between layers due to the lack of z-fibers and has crimp that lowers the properties. Biaxial fabric method and techniques are well developed. Triaxial fabrics have an open structure and low fabric volume fractions. However, in-plane properties of triaxial fabric are more homogeneous in comparison with biaxial fabric due to bias yarns. On the other hand, biaxial and triaxial braided fabrics have size and thickness limitations. Triaxial fabric method and techniques are also well developed.

The woven fabric consists of multiple layers and is not subject to delamination due to the zfibers. However, 3D woven fabric has low in-plane properties because of low fiber volume fraction. Three-dimensional braided fabrics are constituted from multiple layers. The charac‐ teristic intertwine type interlacement of these fabrics provides out-of-plane reinforcement preventing any delamination. Nevertheless, 3D braided fabrics suffer from low transverse properties due to lack of filling yarns like those in a 3D woven fabric. They also have limitations in terms of size and thickness. Various 3D woven and braided fabrication method and techniques are commercially available.

Various unit cell-base models on 3D woven, braided and knitted structures were developed to define the geometrical and mechanical properties of these structures. Most of the unit cell based models include micromechanics and numerical techniques.

Multiaxis 3D knitted fabric has four layers integrated with stitching. The production process has been perfected. The fabric is not subject to delamination owing to the out-of-plane reinforcement provided by the stitching yarn. It has also superior in-plane properties due to ±bias yarns. However, it has some limitations related to layering. Multiaxis 3D woven fabric consists of multiple layers. Out-of-plane reinforcement is provided by z-fibers which prevent delamination. In-plane properties are improved by ±bias yarn layers. Multiaxis 3D braided fabrics have also multiple layers and no delamination, and their in-plane properties are enhanced due to the ±bias yarn layers. However, multiaxis 3D technique has its early devel‐ opment stages. This will be the future technological challenge in multiaxis 3D preform formation subject.
