Knitted Pneumatic Fabrics for Dynamic Pressure Modulation in Personalized Healthcare Wearables

Wearable pneumatic textiles hold significant potential for healthcare applications, particularly in preventing and treating stress-related injuries and diseases. Current pneumatic healthcare wearables often suffer from undesired multidirectional expansion of air chambers, poor conformability to complex body contours, and difficulty in achieving controllable pressure gradients required for medical applications. To overcome these issues, herein, a Pneumatic Pressure-Regulating Knitted Fabric (PPKF) was developed. Its design utilizes a knitted pneumatic circuit to seamlessly integrate an ultralow-expansion pneumatic fiber within a dual-channel structure. Ultralow radial expansion (≤ 1.41%) of pneumatic fiber enables controlled contractile deformation when embedded within knit structures. By strategically modulating channel spacing, PPKF achieves dynamic pressure modulation, delivering adjustable pressures (3-32 kPa) and clinically relevant gradient compression ratios (100.0%, 77.6%, 51.8%, 31.0%, 14.6%). PPKF-based garments exhibit superior wearability, including breathability (949.56 mm/s), excellent fit, and minimal deformation (≤ 5.2%), outperforming commercially available alternatives. The integrated PPKF manufacturing strategy establishes a structure-driven paradigm, providing new design principles for pressure-regulating knitted textiles with enhanced wearability and multifunctionality. Substantial implementation potential is demonstrated across medical rehabilitation, aerospace systems, and athletic protection.