Description du projet
Un avenir plus vert et plus polyvalent pour les textiles non tissés
Les matériaux fibreux tels que le papier et les nattes de lin présentent un immense potentiel en tant qu’alternatives durables aux plastiques. Leur sensibilité à l’humidité et au mouillage a toutefois entravé la généralisation de leur utilisation. Dans cette optique, le projet ElCapiTex, financé par le CER,entend révolutionner la manière dont nous comprenons et utilisons les textiles non tissés humides. ElCapiTex porte ses efforts sur la caractérisation et la modélisation du comportement et des propriétés des textiles non tissés humides au cours des processus de fabrication. Pour ce faire, le projet combine des connaissances relatives aux interactions fluide-structure, au transport des suspensions, à l’élastocapillarité (la déformation induite par l’interface liquide-air) et à la poroélasticité. En faisant appel à des systèmes de modèles expérimentaux et des modèles théoriques, le projet entend combler le fossé entre les mécanismes à l’échelle des pores et le comportement de réseau.
Objectif
Fibrous media are ubiquitous in natural and engineered systems, due to their versatility, flexibility and functionality. Nonwovens (i.e. entangled fibrous networks), and especially natural fibre -based materials such as paper or flax mats, are heavily used for a variety of applications, and could be largely developed as a sustainable alternative for plastics. The first limitation of their widespread use is their response to humidity, wetting or drying, which is unavoidable in many applications, and is a key step of their manufacturing processes. The ElCapiTex project aims at characterizing and modelling the specific behaviour and properties of wet non-woven textiles (consolidation, imbibition, mechanical response, deformation) and of their manufacturing processes. In order to characterize the complex interplay between the various physical mechanisms that gives rise to the global properties of textiles (hydrodynamics, capillarity, elasticity, swelling), we will combine different approaches coming from three recent active research areas of fluid-structure interactions: the transport of suspensions of elastic objects, elastocapillarity (i.e. the deformation induced by the capillary forces associated with liquid-air interfaces), and poroelasticity. We will work with a hierarchy of experimental model systems of increasing complexity, in particular by fabricating model nonwoven sheets from gel fibre suspensions. We will further build theoretical models, based on recent statistical approaches used to describe the mechanical properties of dry textiles. Understanding these physical mechanisms is mandatory to develop innovative processes and materials; reconciling fundamental pore-scale mechanisms with network behaviour will allow for the design of tailored fibrous media with specific properties.
Champ scientifique
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régime de financement
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsInstitution d’accueil
91128 Palaiseau Cedex
France