"Maximum Strength and Securitywith Minimum Weight"

Interview with Mr. Steen Tanderup, Marketing Manager Vehicle Protection,and Mr. Joost E. Dubois, Manager Communication & Business Servicesof DSM Dyneema

During the recent DSEiShow in London, Luca

Bonsignore (right) spoketo DSM Dyneema's

Managers about theirunique product line.

MT: Couid you give our reader-ship a short overview about DSMDyneema?Dubois: DSM Dyneema is the in-ventor and manufacturer of Dy-neema \ the super-strong highperformance polyethylene fibreby DSM. We operate two manu-facturing sites: one in Americaand one in Europe. Dyneema isoffered as yarn, or as UniDirec-tional ballistic sheet (Dyneama'UD). We don't provide any detailson production capacities; howev-er, we are growing very fast. Bythe end of next year we will havetwo-and-a-half times the capacitywe were running in 2000. Nowa-days we can say that our com-pany is truly global since weopened our office in Shanghai.

The invention of Dyneema" fi-bres dates back to the late 1960sand. after the decision was madeto move forward towards com-merciallsafion, many applicationsfor the fibre were developed al-most in parallel and in closecooperation with our customers.We have been commercially op-

Dyneema HQ in Urmond.

erational for 15 years now andexperiencing real growth since1999/2000.

MT: What can fibre dc for protec-tion?Tanderup: Fibre is, let's say. thelow-weight protection solution. Itdoesn'f really matter whether it isa ground vehicle or a naval ves-sel, an aircraft or a person youwant to protect. Fibre lowers thepossibility of any damage to per-sonnel or equipment inside thevehicle. And the whole light-weight issue, of course, is to adda maximum protection withouttaking payload out of the vehicle.And that goes as well for the sol-dier: the less weight the soldiercarries, the more mobile he is, themore secure he is because hecan move. In vehicles you will

have lower maintenance costsand lower fuel consumption, andyou will be able to carry moreammunition or water, whateveryou need to bring, maybe morepersonnel. And in almost any ve-hicle type - on land, in the air orat sea - you have a weight issue,simply because steel is still thematerial most widely used forprotection,

MT: Whicii are the typicai char-acteristics of Dyneema'- fibre?Dubois: Dyneema' is an ex-tremely light, super-strong syn-thetic (polyethylene) fibre. Dynee-ma-' is up to 15 times strongerthan quality steel and 40%stronger than aramids iike Kevlar,both on a weight-for-weight ba-sts. Dyneema' floats on water,and is extremely durable and re-

sistant to abrasion, moisture, UVlight and chemicals.Tanderup: Yes, our ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene(UHMWPE) fibre is the strongestin world. That is what we have tofocus on. It provides maximumstrength and secuhty with mini-mum weight and is therefore suit-ed to a practically unlimited rangeof applications.

MT: How does the so caiied uni-directional (UD) sheets work forprotection?Tanderup: In Dyneema'" UD allthe fibres are laid parallel, in thesame plane, rather than beingwoven together. Dyneema UD ismade of several layers of Dynee-ma' fibres, with the direction offibres in each layer at 90° to thedirection of the fibres in the ad-

34 logyMILTtC •

jacent layers. The unidirectionalconfiguration of the fibres in Dy-neema UD allows the energytransferred from the impact of abullet or other threat to be dis-tributed along the fibres muchfaster and more efficiently than inconventional woven fabrics. ThisIS because of the absorptionpower of the yarn in woven fab-rics is lost at the crossoverpoints, as these points reflectrather than absorb the shockvi aves of the impact. In Dynee-ma UD, much more of the ma-terial is engaged in stopping thebullet, making it more effectiveagainst ballistic threats.

MT: / understand your productsare very well introduced into theAmerican civil aircraft market.Dubois: Indeed, in 2002 ourproduct was the first to be certi-fied by the Federal Aviation Ad-ministration (FAA) in bullet-resist-ant cockpit doors. There was anew regulation after 9/11 to haveal! doors to cockpits of aircraftflying in American aerospace tobe protected at a certain level.

Both the VrSBY-crasscorvettes and theLEOPARD 2A6 MBT relyon Dyneema technology.

Heavy body armour fora Police SWAT team.

Our product was the first to becertified for that purpose.

MT: Do you have such applica-tions also in Europe?Tanderup: Absolutely. It is beingprovided for major European air-craft applications as well - bothas retrofit on existing aircraft, butalso being buiit into new aircraft.Dubois: Any aircraft flying in orinto United States airspace needsto be equipped with this type ofprotection. So we are very pre-sent in all aircraft that are flyingto and across the United States.Tanderup: Europe wili foilowsuch FAA regulations and theywill start installing this protection,because it makes sense. Cockpitprotection involves two aspects:a delaying function, whereby if aperson tries to break into thecockpit the pilot needs to have asufficient time to land the plane;and ballistic protection, so no-body can shoot through thecockpit door. And that is whatDyneema is used for.

MT: So you are involved in thecivil market, police market, as wellas military market?

Dubois: We segment our marketsfor DSM Dyneema into life pro-tection, commercial marine,sports, and cut resistance. Ourlatest development was the intro-duction of Dyneema' Purity forapplications in medical devices.The spread of our sales overthese segments is the result ofour careful business planningprocess, where we aim to optim-ise our presence in all segmentswhere are active.

MT: Can you give an overviewabout the range of applications inLife Protection?Tanderup: We differentiatebetween use in personal protec-tion and in vehicle protection.That is how you can put it veryshortly. Some projects we havebeen involved in are the LEOP-ARD 2 tank in Germany. PIRAN-HA wheeled AFVs from MOWAGGeneral Dynamic Land Systems,VISBY class corvettes for theSwedish Navy, combat aircraft,patrol boats, inserts, things likepolice shields, fast interceptorsfor coast guards. 4x4 vehiclesand trucks (including in particularlots of HUMMVs), VIP cars, andthe new Expeditionary FightingVehicle (EFV) for the US MarineCorps.

MT: And this all can be done al-so by retrofit?Tanderup: It can be done as ret-rofit or it can be done with theoriginal equipment manufacturersfor new vehicles being assem-bled. I mean, the easiest is to doit when the vehicles are beingbuilt, of course. Because when

Milrtary Technology • MILTECH 11/2005 35

Korean soldiers wearingflak vests incorporatingDyneema technology.

you want to retrofit it you have tocompletely strip down the vehicleand remove all internal fittings.That is a lot of equipment in mil-itary vehicles. Then you have toput the panels back in and thenmount everything you took outback on the panel again. So it ismuch easier, if the decision ismade in the construction of thevehicles. And luckily that is thetrend, the way it is going espe-cially in NATO, because there aresome regulations for minimumprotection of people. There are alot of different levels and types ofarmoured vehicles, of course. Po-lice vehicles can be either fullyprotected or have protection inthe doors, so that, for example ifthe policeman comes out he canstay behind the door and be pro-tected.

I should also mention here thatthe brilliant thing about Dyneema' 'is that we can make a custom-ised solution for something spe-cific like, say, 7.62mm rifle am-munition. We have a panel thatweighs 18.5 kg/m^ It will stop thishfle bullet without having any ce-ramic, steel or anything else likethat involved. And Dyneema' isthe only material that can do that.It is quite impressive actually.

MT: You mentioned the HUMMV.and we understand that Kuwaithas adopted your solution for itsvehicles. Are you also irivolved inthe US Army's programme for up-armouring the HUMMVs used inIraq?Dubois: we don't sell to the Ar-my directly. Rather, our custom-ers will turn our ballistic productfor example into a solution that isshaped to fit exactly in a givenvehicle's compartment. We doknow, from our customers, that itis very likely that Dyneema" is be-

ing used in solving at least partof the protection problems thatwere experienced with militaryvehicles in Iraq.Tanderup: Of course, there are alot of developments going on.90% of the HUMMVs originallysent to Iraq were the M998 mod-el, a design that was never in-tended to provide ballistic protec-tion being fitted with very thincomposite doors and structure. If.because of the insurgents' threatyou decide to protect these vehi-cles with conventional steel ar-mour, you are talking about put-ting 2.000 pounds of steel on

The Chemelot site withDSM and SABIC plantsin Geelen, the Netherlands.

them. This has quite a destructiveimpact on the chassis, and willreduce the average lifetime of thevehicle critically low level. Seewhat that costs when you haveabout 35.000 vehicles in that ar-ea. So. ot course, weight is an is-sue and they are looking at low-er weight protective systems. Andin many of these developments,no matter what it is, of course,you will find Dyneema'' some-where.

MT: What kind of customers areyou trying to attract by participat-ing to an exhibition like DSEi?Tanderup: Of course, we havedirect customers here that are ex-hibiting as well and who we meetduring the show. That is impor-tant for us, and a lot more effi-

cient than travelling around formeetings. But even more impor-tant than that for us are the end-user contacts that we don't reg-ularly meet otherwise. Being hereenables us to deliver our mes-sage directly to the end-users.We explain to them that it is notonly an issue of investment inlightweight armour they have tolook at, but that they also have totake info account the lifetime of avehicle over five or ten, maybe fif-teen years. How much do yousave on, like I mentioned before- the weight issue, maintenance,fuel consumption, repair works,payload. 1 mean, who wants tobuy a truck and then hang steelarmour on it, so that you don'thave any payload left? It doesn'treally make any sense. You wantstill be able to put as much asyou possibly can on the back ofthe vehicle. So for us that mes-sage to the end-user is really im-portant. Look at the total life cy-cle cost of what you are buying.Dubois: We will be exhibiting atmany shows in the police or mil-itary segment this year. We wereat IDEX this year, Eurosatory lastyear and next year again. Now atDSEi. and then on to the US forlACP and AUSA. After that we willbe at the Security & Safety tradeexpo in Tokyo and finally at MIL-IPOL in Paris.

MT: in which directions is devei-opment going?Tanderup: Stronger and lighter,of course that is what we will beheading for. And on top of that,of course, I mean we are a veryinnovative company.

MT: Gentlemen, ^•C^U^v.thank you very much. 'HSg^y

36 Military Tectinology • MILTECH • 11/2005