2.S990: Fashion Engineering

Spring | Graduate (Undergrads accepted) | 12 Units | Prerequisites: None

Qualifies as an elective class for MIT LGO & MEng in Advanced Manufacturing & Design programs.
Recommended: 2.00 Intro to Design; 2.001: Mechanics & Materials; 2.051: Intro to Heat Transfer

Fashion industry drives innovation in polymer science, mechanical engineering, manufacturing techniques, optical engineering, and manufacturer-consumer interactions. On the other hand, it faces numerous environmental and sustainability problems, from the massive consumption of water for cotton production, to half a million tons of microplastics and an estimated 11 million tons of textile waste landfilled annually in the US alone.

The course will outline physical and engineering principles that are used in engineering and manufacturing of fibers and textiles. These include fundamentals of polymer science, mechanical, thermal, and moisture transport engineering of fibrous media, visual color science and engineering, and friction and wear of polymer and composite fibrous materials. The students will practice analyzing how the material and structure of woven, knitted, and nonwoven textiles translates into their strength, stretchability, abrasion resistance, visible color and reflectance, passive cooling or heating, and anti-microbial and self-cleaning properties. 

The course will include lab tours, hands-on experience, guest lectures, industry panels and discussions with mentors from industry, military, and academia currently working on the development of smart fibers, fabrics and garments. In the team exploratory project, student teams will analyze and make a presentation on one of highly successful commercialized fiber/textile-based technologies proposed by the instructor. In the final class project, each student will prepare and present a mock patent application describing a fiber- or textile-based product.