Kevlar protecting profit for DuPont

Most businesses feel lucky when one big trend boosts a 42-year-old product. DuPont Co. is feeling really good.

Its Kevlar, invented in 1965 and best known as a component of body armor, has been riding three huge waves to double-digit growth for more than five years. So the Wilmington-based company said yesterday that it would invest a half-billion dollars to increase Kevlar production, mostly at its plant in Richmond, Va., 25 percent by 2010.

The $500 million is by far the largest investment in Kevlar's history, DuPont said. The company reported sales of $27.4 billion last year. It spent $20.4 billion last year for all manufacturing and raw materials.

The Kevlar news sent DuPont shares up 58 cents, or 1.18 percent, to close at $49.88 yesterday. DuPont said it did not release sales or profit figures for individual products.

The decision sparked speculation that the Iraq war had created a shortage of body armor made by DuPont and others. But DuPont said that, while many customers wanted an increased supply, it knew of no critical shortages. State and local law-enforcement agencies and police union officers said orders for protective gear were being filled promptly.

Global terrorism, rising crime, and war in the Middle East have created demands for personal and vehicle protection that account for about half the product's sales, DuPont said. But it said two other trends are also helping boost Kevlar sales.

Rising fuel prices are creating vehicle uses for the product because it is lighter and five times stronger than steel.

And rapid growth in some developing nations, particularly China, is putting more traffic over bridges than they were designed to carry. Engineers have discovered that wrapping portions of structures with Kevlar adds needed strength at less cost than building new ones.

Kevlar is expensive. Vests made from it are marketed to law officers, politicians, executives and others for upward of $600. Some models are more than double that price.

Meanwhile, Kevlar is finding its way into structures and mechanical parts of airplanes, spacecraft, Nascar racers, trucks and family automobiles. It helps make mattresses more fire-resistant, and produces work gloves, helmets and garments that protect industrial workers, astronauts and hockey players from cuts.

Kevlar is used to wrap fiber-optic cable, protecting it from water and costly cuts that disrupt communication. It was initially used to produce tires that roll more fuel-efficiently and resist punctures, and it still plays that role.

"We have a large group of scientists around the world - primarily in Richmond, Geneva and Shanghai - working on new uses," Thomas G. Powell, vice president and general manager of DuPont's Advanced Fiber Systems unit, said in an interview yesterday.

"And our customers are coming up with creative ways to solve problems with Kevlar," Powell said.

After Hurricane Katrina and other storms, Kevlar is being used to develop office and residential safe rooms that shield occupants from flying debris in 250-m.p.h. winds, Powell said.

The revolutionary product was invented in 1965 by Stephanie Kwolek, a DuPont research scientist, who created it by spinning it from liquid crystalline solutions. Five years later, DuPont researcher Herb Blades developed a way to mass-produce it.

In 1975, the first law officer was inducted in the "Kevlar Survivors Club," which had grown to 3,000 by last year.