![]() Police officials said they chose to contract with Point Blank because it makes a double-layered vest, half of which can be shed in hot weather to make the vest more comfortable, and because it is, according to the officials, the only company that has had that product tested by independent laboratories. Officials from several companies said they could make vests more cheaply than Point Blank, which is charging $180 each. The companies said the city never requested bids and that they were never considered for the contract. Representatives of American Body Armor and four other vest companies attended yesterday's news conference, and said from the audience that each of them could produce a vest similar to the one ordered by Turner. The first 300 vests were delivered last week. The vests, to cost about $650,000, are to be paid for by a $250,000 grant from the City Council, and more than $350,000 raised by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) in a fund-raising drive. Yesterday's action followed a series of reports on WJLA-TV, Channel 7, last week that the department chose a bulletproof vest that is not as effective as some others at stopping some bullets and that the department did not solicit bids from companies other than Point Blank of Freeport, N.Y., the company with which it has contracted to buy 3,600 vests. "I made a decision as chief of police, and I stand by that decision," Turner said at a news conference at the police training academy in Southwest Washington. police officials and leaders of the city's police union yesterday defended Police Chief Maurice Turner's choice of a model of bulletproof vest for the department's 3,600 officers, rejecting complaints that vests made by other companies could be delivered more cheaply and were more effective at stopping some bullets. Each sheet is thus able to combine the unprecedented strength of the fiber with the pliant thinness of the matrix design.D.C. In effect, unidirectional fibers are placed at right angles to one another and then laminated together. In creating the ballistic material from the fiber itself, thousands and thousands of individual fiber filaments are aligned in a unique 0˚/90˚ configuration. The result is a fiber with strength heretofore simplyunknownto science. Using a gel of extremely high molecular weight, they spin it to disentangle the polymeric chain, drawing the fiber to superior ratios. This polymer was created by DSM Dyneema’s patented gel-spinning technology. POLYMER SCIENCEĭSM Dyneema engineers pushed the boundaries of polymer science by creating a completely unique ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) polymer. This revolutionary combination of strength, light weight and flexibility is a result of innovations in two main areas: 1. Yet as strong as the fiber is, laminated sheets of Force Multiplier Technology ballistic material are so light and flexible that they appear semi-transparent - and they even float on water. Now, company engineers have made it even stronger. A product of the DSM Dyneema® radical innovation program, the patented Force Multiplier Technology has been in development for more than three years.ĭSM Dyneema made headlines when the company created the world’s strongest fiber, Dyneema.
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