Małgorzata Śmiałkowska-Opałka
Future Warrior Concept

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According to the plans of American Army, no later than on 2020, every soldiers shall be equipped with supermodern uniforms, which shall enable communication with their commander, excellent orientation in terrain, protection against wounds and more effective elimination of the enemy.
The NSC team (Natick Soldier Center – full name: Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC)) developed a concept of future soldier (Future Warrior Concept - FWC), consisting of six main subsystems: communication, combat overalls, armament, monitoring of physiological functions, micro-climate conditioning and power subsystem.
The presented material discusses design guidelines and tasks of each subsystem. One of the guidelines of the future soldier concept is remarkable improvement of his physical strength. Co-operation of Human Engineering Laboratory University of California, Berkeley with team of DARPA (U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) aims to convert regular soldiers into excellent troops able to overcome tall obstacles, run at high speed and carry an equipment of significant weight. The goal is to be reached by applying an external framing named exoskeleton, which improves abilities of human body.
The paper discusses expectations towards the exoskeleton to prove according to to the DARPA presumptions.

Elżbieta Maklewska
Special Clothing for Firemen - the Properties and Test Methods acc. PN-EN 69:2008 Standard Requirements

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Protective clothing for firemen as a product belonging to the group of individual protection means is subject to the guidelines and law acts in due across all of the Europe Union countries. The membership of Poland in the EU requires adopting the parameters of special clothing to the standards in due within EU, therefore taking research and development work towards it is advisable. The article discusses in details the basic requirements concerning the protective clothing.

Jolanta Janicka, Romualda Koźmińska
Textiles in Composite Material

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More and more interest in technical composites made with a share of textile material is observed. The composites made with a share of non-woven, knits or fabrics applied find applications at many industry branches, as well as in medicine, agriculture, fishery etc. One could state, that nowadays there’s no area, where we can’t find any textile materials as a basic or component material for manufactured products.
The article presents research works, result of which was developing new ranges of composites manufactured before all on a basis of knit materials, and being used in bookbinding, typography and constructions.
As a result of completed research, the technologies of technical composites have been developed for the following applications:

• veneer materials for typography and decoration wrappers’ manufacturers
• meshes for grinding the plaster smooth surfaces, cardboard-plaster panels, putties, grinding the plaster and painted surfaces as well as for cleaning and matting the steel, wood, plastic and colour metals
• hydro-insulating bands, i.a. for sealing the welds, joints of walls and floors as well as the corners against penetration of water and moisture.

Małgorzata Śmiałkowska-Opałka
Intelligent Membranes for Making-up

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Clothing nowadays serves with more and more excellent functionalities due to their features and properties. Today the ready-made wear is often a multi-layer structure of layers’ systems which are consisting of single, intelligent materials.
An example of intelligent materials, designed and tested at a molecular level are the polymeric intelligent membranes, featuring active reactions to an increase of temperature and humidity.
An instance of intelligent polymeric membrane could be the DiAPLEX, which is a product of advanced technology, that makes use of polyurethane polymer able to keep the memory of shape.
Clothing made of materials with the DiAPLEX membrane applied is able to answer the changes of temperature and humidity, that happen in surrounding environment, estimate them in an intelligent manner and control the responses, so the highest level of usage comfort is provided.
Equally interesting example of novelties of the market of intelligent materials is bionic membrane c_change™ , being offered by the Swiss company Schoeller AG.
c_change™ is waterproof and windproof film, capable of self-reliant, flexible adaptation of its water-vapourpermeability, to improve cloth wearing comfort under dynamic conditions.
The membranes presented in the paper are examples of intelligent materials, which could be exploited by the clothing industry, and are more and more volume of which is available on the market.

Products Certification Department

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Krystyna Fortuniak, Iwona Kucińska
Worldwide Tendencies in Designing of the Equipment for Special Users for Products Rresented at GPEC’2008 Exhibition

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The latest trends in designing the protective clothing and shoes dedicated for special users are presented by examples of selected products shown at the GPEC’2008 exhibition. The main trends of protective products’ designs are pointed, which rely mainly on increasing the levels of protection (resistance classes), combining protective functionalities (i.e. antiblow and ballistic ones), expanding the protected area as well as improving the thermal comfort of usage.

Zofia Przybylska
The Alphabet of Inventions I-M

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