Pelican Dyneema High Tech Rope: Strength in Force
Emergency floating pontoons are used in military and defence force operations for numerous purposes including pedestrian and vehicle access across bodies of water. In order to get these pontoons into the water, they must be transported via army truck and then lowered onto the water’s edge. The process of lowering the heavy equipment requires heavy duty rope to ensure smooth transition.
In this application the defence force chose to use the Pelican 7DP Series Dyneema® rope which is high-strength, 12-strand and one of the world’s strongest fibres. They utilised this rope to deploy their pontoons for many reasons.
The Pelican 7DP Series Dyneema® rope is unaffected by oil and common chemicals, it is easily spliced, exhibits low flex fatigue, near zero creep, has excellent abrasion resistance with a low elongation-to-break ratio and has built in load sharing and staggering failure to eliminate dangerous backlash.
The compact design of the strands in the Pelican 7DP Series Dyneema® rope also prevents contaminants from entering the strands especially when used in muddy, rocky and dirty environments.
It is extremely lightweight weighing around 80% less than steel wire rope of the same strength and 33% lighter than Nylon. So in this particular application the weight of the rope does not burden the vehicles (compared with steel wire rope). Being lightweight and fibre is especially helpful due to its ability to float in water.
The Pelican 7DP Series Dyneema® rope from Pelican is kilogram for kilogram 10 times stronger than steel and with over 3 times the strength of Polyester or Nylon. The break strength remains consistent no matter whether the rope is wet or dry. Additional protection is provided by the urethane coating applied to the rope which provides a smoother finish meaning less damage and wear to rollers, sheaves, and capstan winches or whatever purpose the Dyneema® rope may be required for.