French company designs biker jeans based on space materials

[Bob]

French company ESquad has created protective biker jeans, using a material originally created for use in space.

Pierre-Henry Servajean began his search for the ideal material after suffering an accident while wearing conventional denim jeans. He said “I realised everything I had on my body was perfect – my helmet, gloves, jacket – except the jeans. I had suitable things for every part of my body, except my legs.”

Ultimately, he found Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene’ (UHMWPE) – a material featuring fibres twice as strong as Kevlar, and 10-100 times stronger than steel. UHMWPE is so strong but light, that it was originally employed as part of ESA’s microgravity mission where they dangled a small re-entry capsule in orbit from a line just half a millimetre thick made of the material, some 30 kilometres in length!

Servajean’s company ESquad has created a fabric by taking the fibres and wrapping them in cotton, so combining the existing quality of jeans with the strength of UHMWPE. To demonstrate the strength of the new fabric, he suspended a 2700kg Hummer from a pair of the jeans.

For more information: http://esquad.fr/

[NZsarge]

Interesting for sure, while tensile strength is important I saw nothing in reference to abrasion resistance (bearing in mind I don't speak french) which I would have thought would have been key to demonstrate.

[EJK]

Click the "English" button on top right hand side.

:-)

[martybabe]

They look impressive, cripes knows how you would cut them to length to turn them up though, Angle grinder?

[Taz]

Servajean Very apt.

[sil3nt]

Interesting for sure, while tensile strength is important I saw nothing in reference to abrasion resistance (bearing in mind I don't speak french) which I would have thought would have been key to demonstrate.

15 times more resistant to abrasion than carbon steel

Selling for close to £300 so would imagine over $600 if they ever reach here.

[Bren]

Selling for close to £300 so would imagine over $600 if they ever reach here.

So selling for an arm and a leg.........means you need a pair of jeans with just one leg!

[DangerMice]

Interesting for sure, while tensile strength is important I saw nothing in reference to abrasion resistance (bearing in mind I don't speak french) which I would have thought would have been key to demonstrate.

Check out the human drift video.

[steve_t]

Interesting that the jeans have an extra layer of kevlar (aramid) in the butt region "to slow heat diffusion"
Watched the human drift video - poor bike