Temperature effect on the conductivity of knitted fabrics embedded with conducting yarns

The electrical resistance of knitted fabrics embedded with conducting yarns at different temperatures was studied in this paper. Two types of resistance, linear resistance and contact resistance have been considered and discussed by experimental studies and theoretical modeling. Two silver-coated conductive yarns, yarn A and B, with linear resistance of 68.6 Ω/cm and 1 Ω/cm respectively, were embedded into normal knitted woolen fabrics. The temperature effect on the resistance of these two conductive knitted fabrics as a function of applied voltages was extensively explored. The results have shown that the resistance of either conductive knitted fabric decreases significantly (maximum 30%) when its temperature is rising. It can be explained by two main factors: the electrical resistance of the silver-coated conductive yarns decreases as temperature rises; the physical contact of the overlapped conductive yarns extends due to heating on woolen fabrics, which causes a decrease in contact resistance. This research has shown that the temperature effect on the conductivity of the knitted fabrics embedded with conductive yarns should be carefully considered in future industrial applications.