Knitted screen offers flexible light management for greenhouses
A chance encounter some twenty years ago between a greenhouse grower and a textile engineer—who also happened to be trained in electro-technology—brought to light a recurring problem for growers: how to regulate the supply of sunlight in a glass house. Existing screening systems, which either opened or closed completely, resulted in drafts as well as fluctuations in temperature and humidity that could damage delicate plants.
The textile engineer, Leo Jasper, imagined an elastic cloth that would automatically stretch or retract to control the amount and angle of light. The screen would need to combine a robust elastic fibre that was also UV resistant, with an easily adjustable structure that would provide more or less sunlight or shade as required, in an automated system that responded to available light.
Click here to read the entire story by Debra Cobb at innovationintextiles.com