When the World’s Strongest Fiber Combines With the World’s Strongest Fiber (EXCLUSIVE)
15 times stronger than steel. If you’re familiar with Dyneema — the textile innovator whose ultra-tough fiber is trusted on everything from armored vehicles to the techiest of trail sneakers — then you’ll be familiar with this fact. It’s been the company’s calling card since it made the world’s strongest fiber commercially available in the late '80s.
The lightweight, flexible materials Dyneema are woven into are almost incomprehensibly strong. After all, steel is trusted with building skyscrapers, and yet it can’t hold a candle to Dyneema in the strength department.
But Dyneema isn’t satisfied with the already immense levels of robustness and lightness in its materials.
“We set out to significantly improve the abrasion resistance and durability of our already best-in-class portfolio, without adding weight. That meant rethinking the fabric construction, experimenting with new fiber combinations, and testing dozens of prototypes,” Chiharu Pidgeon, Dyneema’s global business manager for fabrics and composites, tells me via email.
“At one point, we even considered eliminating the Dyneema core entirely, but nothing matched its stability and structure. In the end, we returned to what sets us apart: our fiber spreading technology.”
The result of the company’s experimentation is Dyneema Woven Composite. This new material has a dual-layer construction with a woven outer layer and a cross-ply patterned core. Essentially, says Pidgeon, it has double the Dyneema.
This culminates in Dyneema Woven Composite being ten times more abrasion resistant, five times more tear resistant, and with 34% weight saved compared to the existing Dyneema composite materials.
But Dyneema Woven Composite isn’t only super hard-wearing and lightweight. “It feels luxurious. It feels like a really nice piece of broken-in leather,” says Mike St. Pierre, founder and CEO of Hyperlite Mountain Gear, when I catch him for a quick phone call.
“It's a real joy to wear as a backpack. You don't even realize you're wearing it because it's so comfortable, and then the performance is unmatched compared to anything else that the outdoor industry uses.”
St. Pierre’s had the honor of working directly with Dyneema during the testing process for this new material, and Hyperlite Mountain Gear’s new backpacks (available to shop from July 15) are the first products to use Dyneema Woven Composite.
It’s been a long time in the making. Years of testing have gone into the backpacks, with Sherpas climbing the world’s toughest peaks (including Mount Everest) wearing the designs and reporting back their findings.
Hyperlite, a maker of top-of-the-range hiking gear, wasn’t going to release the bags until every last detail was perfect — “My biggest fear is that we launch something like this and then it falls apart down the road,” says St. Pierre. And Dyneema equally isn’t one to rush a product to the market, this is its first innovation for the outdoor industry in a decade.
This new Woven Composite has been created specifically with backpacks in mind. However, don’t expect to only see it on bags, Dyneema's technically advanced fiber has a knack for popping up in unexpected places (like on Levi's jeans or Vans sneakers).
“As with our broader Dyneema composites portfolio, which has been used in everything from aerospace to high-performance sporting equipment, we fully expect product designers to apply this innovation in ways we haven't even imagined yet,” says Pidgeon. “The possibilities are nearly limitless.”
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