Royal DSM (Heerlen, the Netherlands; www.dsm.com) announced plans to increase its production capacity for Dyneema products. Strong demand for both Dyneema UD (composite unidirectional laminate) and Dyneema fiber is prompting this increase.
The company is investing to install additional new UD technology at its plant in Heerlen, the Netherlands, and its plant in Greenville, North Carolina, and will also make improvements to existing production lines to expand Dyneema UD and Dyneema fiber capacity, incorporating the latest technologies. The global production capacity of Dyneema UD will be increased by more than 20%. This capacity increase will further strengthen DSM’s product leadership under the Dyneema brand.
The capacity expansion will enable DSM to serve the growing global customer demand. The growing domestic U.S. market will be served better from DSM’s Greenville, N.C. facility. The additional Dyneema UD and Dyneema fiber capacity will become available in the course of 2018 and is due be fully on stream by Q1 2019.
Dyneema UD is a composite unidirectional laminate that offers energy absorption and enhanced protection. It is available as a hard and soft ballistic material.