Drysuit durability

[Drifter86]

Which type of material is the best for a drysuit concerning durability???

 

[GDI]

A drysuit can last your years if your buoyancy and trim are good. Neoprene is the least durable ( I have had them last for quite a while though) Trilam shell suits hold up pretty good

 

[Ostsee Taucher]

It really depends on what kind of durability we are talking about.
When we are talking about durability of seam or resistance against environment, vulcanized rubber suit (such as Viking) will be the best one. However, when we are talking about wear resistance, Viking will be not so durable but neoprene will be the choice. When we are talking about puncture resistance, TLS may be ...

 

[BigJetDriver]

Which type of material is the best for a drysuit concerning durability???

Try:

www.dui-online.com

and look under Tech Info.

Cheers!

 

[mweitz]

Mobby's makes some heavy duty (2000 Denier I think) Cordura suits.

Mark

 

[matt_unique]

Which type of material is the best for a drysuit concerning durability???

Trilam material is more durable than neoprene but it does not flex. In my experience seals and seams go much sooner in a trilam suit compared to a neoprene suit. Neoprene is more flexible so the seams last longer. If you were to rake a suit over a wreck the trilam would hold up better.

--Matt

 

[jonnythan]

Trilam material can be very fragile or very tough, depending on what material is used. A good Cordura will be tough as nails, but a low denier polyester can be pretty fragile. Neoprene is at least as tough as a good Cordura. [edit: different trilam suits will also have different thicknesses and number of layers of butyl rubber between the two faces, but it seems that generally the tougher the outside skin, the tougher they make the rubber]

The least "durable" is going to be a bilam, simply because the urethane coating can disintegrate or peel off the face fabric. Viking's rubber is going to fall between the high and low end trilams, but it's easily repairable.

 

[CUunderH2O]

One of my instructors has an Abyss compressed neoprene drysuit that's bonded with Kevlar. If that's not durable I don't know what is!
www.abyssdivingsuits.com

 

[SubMariner]

Trilam material is more durable than neoprene but it does not flex. In my experience seals and seams go much sooner in a trilam suit compared to a neoprene suit. Neoprene is more flexible so the seams last longer. If you were to rake a suit over a wreck the trilam would hold up better.

--Matt

I'd have to disagree on the flexibility issue. I've had both neoprene & trilam suits & find the neoprene far more bulky/less flexible than its trilam counterpart. With a 5mm neoprene drysuit I feel like the Mummy; not so in the trilam.

 

[matt_unique]

I'd have to disagree on the flexibility issue. I've had both neoprene & trilam suits & find the neoprene far more bulky/less flexible than itsr trilam counterpart. With a 5mm neoprene drysuit I feel like the Mummy; not so in the trilam.

By flexibility I meant the actual material. If you hold one end of a trilam arm and pull from the wrist seal for example all the stress will be on the bond between the wrist seal and the arm on the suit. If you do the same with a neoprene suit the stress will be distrubuted over the arm.

Neoprene suits are definitely more restrictive compared to trilam suits once you are in them.

--Matt