Electrical properties of metal coated polyamide yarns

Modern mobile solutions for interpersonal communication, context awareness and other functionalities in the meaning of ubiquitous computing require an available infrastructure including a user-friendly technical ambient (e.g. body-area network). The integration of electric wire directly into textile is one step towards this opportunity of invisible components. Several textile wire solutions are known (see Smart Clothes1). In opposite to these solutions this is a new attempt to focus on a conducting yarn with full textile properties. In the range of sub-micrometer metal coating polyamide filaments are in the focal point of this investigation. The electrical properties like variation, drift and relaxation of the ohmic resistance of the different yarn types are elaborated. As far as possible the correlation between manufacturing parameters and the conducting yarn properties were established.