There are several countries working in the domain of
conventional textiles with the generous land and environmental resources of producing natural fibers particularly cotton. The little awareness and interest in the area of
technical textiles is evidently reflected in major cotton growing developing
countries, however, the case of India is significantly different. The
motivation created decades back now emerging in significant research projects, public allocations and private investment.
The interest in the development of technical textile has
significantly grown in India reflected in the 11th five year plan
(April 2007- March 2012). There were several important schemes, projects and
capital investment to promote the technical textile sector. The National
Mission for Technical Textiles was launched in September 2007. This Mission has
to use an allocation of US $ 170 million in five year period to develop the
technical textile industry to a size of around US $ 12- 15 billion (2).
Impressive growth results in Indian technical textile
industry are predicted in the next two decades in comparison to the last three
decades of USA and Europe. More recently, an allocation of Rs. 440 millions was
sanctioned by the Indian Government for establishing four centers of excellence
to encourage the technical textile industry (3).
In Pakistan, interest development yet demands continual
appreciation of the subject, and the progression in the interdisciplinary
approaches prior the materialized achievement. Little developing interest may
be seen in studies. It was in 2005, when a study project on g-suit was executed
at the textile department of NED University, Karachi, in association with the
concerned public aviation department (4). Such interesting studies are
supportive to realized subject importance and are presently demanded using
justified competency.
G-suit is an interesting and significantly useful textile
product in aerospace operation. It is a type of garment generally in the form
of tightly fitting trousers (5). It is worn by aviators to control the blood
circulation at higher level of acceleration. The g-suit is designed to reduce
blood flow to lower side of human body under the influence of acceleration or
deceleration (6); therefore the desired functions of pilots are achievable.
Generally, a g-suit is composed of inflatable bladders,
containing air or liquid that can be pressurized using a g-sensitive valve and
held firm to legs and abdomen under higher values of g. It may also be termed
as anti- gravity suit for being utilized to deal with the accelerated motion
against the gravity.
The principle desired function of g- suit is to resist the
blood draining from brain and upper body parts to legs of aviators. This effect
results in preventing the loss of conscious and the variation in the level of
visibility of aircraft pilot.
The initial effect of blood pooling in lower parts is a
reduced level of vision termed as grey- out (= browning of scene). Stronger
vision loss is termed as tunnel- vision, and the ultimate result is a black-
out effect called g-induced loss of consciousness (g- LOC) (5).
The effects of g-LOC were known since 1917 (6). However, in
World War II, higher performance planes were used and this problem became
significant. In the following next decades to post World War II, the next
generation of aircrafts had experienced significantly increased level of
acceleration. It was doubled from 4.5g to 9g.
Currently the g- suits are available that can retain the
aviator consciousness under an acceleration of 9g. An indication in g- suit
innovation and development may be seen in Popular Science Magazine, California
(USA). The magazine had recognized an Air Force Test Pilot School tested
prototype anti- gravity suit in the top-100 technology development of 2000 (7).
