PatentBrief

Patent of the Day

May 28, 2026

Featured·US 3671542

Kevlar — The Fiber Five Times Stronger Than Steel, Invented by Accident

Stephanie Kwolek's 1965 DuPont patent describes Kevlar — the aramid fiber that is five times stronger than steel by weight, discovered when Kwolek insisted on testing a strange cloudy polymer solution her colleagues thought was defective.

EI Du Pont de Nemours and Co·1972materials-sciencedefense

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