Carbon nanotube (CNT) yarn drawn from CNT arrays has recently attracted considerable interest for various applications in wiring harnesses, composites, smart textiles, and high strength structural materials. Although the excellent properties and functions of CNTs are expressed at nanometer scale, it is quite difficult to maintain these nanoscale properties while upscaling to bulk CNT spun yarn. This paper aims to provide an overview of the rapid synthesis of spinnable tall and dense CNT arrays, the processing and improvement of the physical properties of CNT spun yarn, and the application of CNT spun yarn in the fields of energy and mechanical devices.

The ever-increasing elderly population and soaring medical expenses demand a wearable monitoring system that can continuously administer blood pressure values to prevent and treat diseases. However, a conventional measuring device does not satisfy this demand owing to its large size and the physical pressure exerted during a measurement. To tackle the issue, the development of smart textiles which has a body signal detection function has been widely investigated. We have proposed a wearable, non-invasive blood pressure measurement device using a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor. The FBG sensor can be easily embedded in garments. Therefore, the FBG sensor can be used in smart textiles for wearable blood pressure monitoring. We used the partial least squares regression (PLSR) method for constructing the calibration curve, which was used to estimate the blood pressure values with the pulse wave signals measured by the FBG sensor. In this study, we demonstrated the measurements of suddenly varying blood pressure values by simulating an abrupt blood pressure change using the cold pressor test. The validation that our system can trace sudden blood pressure change is essential to realize the wearable and continuous blood pressure monitoring device. Our system can efficiently predict the changes in the blood pressure values by focusing on the shape difference in the part of the signal measured by FBG sensor, which indicates the pulse wave reflected from the peripheral blood vessel. The accuracy of the proposed FBG sensor-based system is comparable to the conventional blood pressure measurement device. In fact, the system displays better accuracy in the measurement of sudden changes in blood pressure values.

The mechanical strength of carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic (CFRTP) composite material is influenced by the interfacial adhesionstrengthofcarbonfiber(CF)andmatrix resin. The sizing agent coating a CF surface affects the interfacial characteristics between the CF and matrix resin. That is, the sizing agent affects the mechanical strength of CFRTP. Therefore, it is necessary to treat the sizing-agent-coated CF prior to CFRTP molding. In this study, we investigated the effect of heat treatment of sizing-agent-coated CF on the flexural strength of CFRTP and the interfacial shear strength between CF and thermoplastic matrix resin. As a result, it was found that the heat-treatment conditions of CF that maximize the flexural strength of CFRTP and the interfacial shear strength of CF and thermoplastic resin depend on the composition of the thermoplastic resin. Furthermore, a correlation was found between the flexural strength of CFRTP and the interfacial shear strength between CF and matrix resin. That is, by applying heat treatment suitable for the composition of the thermoplastic resin to the CF, the interfacial shear strength was increased and the flexural strength of the CFRTP was increased.