Liquid Crystal Polymers (aka Liquid Crystals)
The sports industry has a thirst for new materials and technologies, using them just as much to create heroes for a specific brand story as they do to enhance performance. In the Nike Flywire® technology used in the Lunar Racer shoe, a new material sandwich was designed to create this ultra-lightweight running shoe. The material hero in these shoes is Vectran® a brand of fibres that is a quarter of the diameter of a human hair and weight-for-weight, five times stronger than steel. These fibres are sandwiched between a TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) mesh to create a shoe upper that is as thin and translucent as a second skin. Vectran® is classified as a liquid crystal polymer (LCP).
It’s difficult ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access