Trade fairs and events

IFAI Advanced Textiles Europe 2011

Leading experts from around the world will gather in Barcelona at the fourth Industrial Fabrics Association International Advanced Textiles Europe conference. The conference focuses on the future of technical textile applications.

The unique conference series began in 2008 in Berlin to serve as an U.S.-European entrepreneur networking conference, and it immediately found a broad interest within the technical textiles community. IFAI AT Europe ’11 will co-locate alongside ITMA 2011 with two consecutive morning sessions 26-27 Sept. 2011. ITMA, the world’s largest international textile machinery exhibition, runs 22-29 Sept.

AT Europe ’11 will highlight a diverse range of technical textile innovations and how these new technologies can benefit companies and their products. The conference will feature three distinct sessions including:

Delegates will come away with a new perspective on the industry’s state-of-the-science advancements in technical textile applications. The AT Europe ’11 is being held in conjunction with ITMA 2011.

Market Needs – Current & Future
Monday, September 26th, 13.00 – 16.30 o’clock

In this session the focus will be on market needs for technical textiles in selected the market sectors: Personal Protection Clothing & Equipment (PPE), Building & Construction, Automotives and Shipping. In the PPE area the presentations will cover research and needs of Standardization and Certification from both European and U.S. perspective. The market and business needs will be addressed in terms of enhancement of innovations in order to assure sustainable growth of the textile industry.

New Technologies and Manufacturing Processes
Tuesday, September 27th, 10.00 – 1300 o’clock

Many emerging technologies such as nanotechnology are already in the industrial pipeline aiming at becoming an integral part of various manufacturing processes for the production of advanced and highly functional textiles. Many important technological advances have been made in fabric manufacturing processes such as weaving, braiding, and nonwovens technology. This session will provide presentations on these developments as well as on the topic of performance chemicals and smart coating technology for producing advanced fabrics.

New Materials and Products
Tuesday, September 27th 14.00 – 17.30 o’clock

This session is divided into two sub-sessions with a special focus on the latest information about protective textiles and smart textiles. There will be a Q&A period at the end of each sub-session. Part one will focus on new developments in protective textiles including Natick’s Future Soldier Systems, Protective textiles in the Security industry and nonwovens based heat and flame protection materials.

Part two will focus on smart and interactive textiles. The presentations will analyze some success stories & bottlenecks in this field and discuss pitfalls in e-textiles area as well as describe the development of a commercial smart textiles product.