The metal with which this product is manufactured is meta-aramid, from which threads are created to make fabrics like the ones Grosjean wore and which allowed it to burn for 28 seconds. “It is a fabric also used by firefighters and the military, which resists fire and prevents it from reaching the skin,” explains Daniela Sacerdoti, from the Du Pont security team.. One of the reasons it worked so efficiently is because of the three layers of protection for this material that I was wearing. This fiber that has worked the miracle is synthetic and is made with a chemical composition designed to be very resistant to heat. Its effectiveness has been proven.
The US factory works continuously with the Renault team, with which the Oviedo driver Fernando Alonso will return to Formula 1, and the objective is to improve the quality and safety of these products. “In twelve or thirteen years we have managed to reduce the weight of the pilot’s suit by 40%,” explains Sacerdoti. A task that allows us to do things that were not so simple at the beginning, such as dyeing the suit with the colors of the team.
Accuracy reaches such a point that the pilot suit that Grosjean wore Sunday was not only composed of this Du Pont material, it was also sewn with this nomex thread, something that was essential so that the fire did not enter anywhere and the pilot could last longer out of danger while the operators arrived in your help.
Interesting too it’s the glove theme, also manufactured with this material, but with different safety requirements. The fact is that, in the two days following the accident, the French pilot had the most damage to his hands. The safety regulation is different between suits and gloves, which only have one layer of this product, so the fire reaches the skin earlier. The reason is that pilots need to have sensitivity in their hands. This is another of the fields in which the company is investigating: “We are working on the development of gloves with two layers and with high sensitivity”, explains Sacerdoti, who acknowledges that on Sunday “everything worked very well”.
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