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11.07.2007
Freudenberg Reports Sharp Increase in Celestia Stretch™ Orders
Lowell, MA, November 7, 2007 -- Freudenberg North America reports a major upswing
in orders for Celestia Stretch, the company’s FR protection fabric for
memory foam mattresses. The increase, according to company representatives, is
due to the public’s growing preference for memory foam and latex rubber
foam mattresses which today account for an estimated 20 percentage of retail
sales.
Memory Foam’s popularity has created a growing demand for
a type of flame retardant fabric protection that will not detract
from the unique performance characteristics of the mattress itself.
Memory Foam mattresses are unique in their behavior, because their
response to the constant shift in body movement and pressure is different
than that of conventional innerspring designs, which rely on spring
tension to create back pressure against shifting body weight.
Memory foam mattresses rely on the resiliency of the foam itself
to assure what amounts to instantaneous response to even the slightest
body movement. As a result, the mattress actually shapes itself to
the contour of the body, depending upon where body pressure is applied.
Furthermore when body pressure is removed, the foam immediately relaxes
to its quiescent state (total absence of pressure).
In order for FR material to function properly in conjunction with
memory foam mattresses, the reaction of the fabric must be fully
synchronous with that of the mattress itself, otherwise it will interfere
with overall mattress performance. Conventional fabrics are at a
disadvantage when it comes to meeting this requirement, because for
the most they are woven and thereby unable to offer equal pressure
response in all directions.
Celestia Stretch being an engineered fabric, on the other hand,
is constructed in such a way that it can move with equal strength
in all directions. This characteristic, which is due to the fabric’s
unique omni-directional fiber composition arrangement, affords the
same resiliency characteristics as the typical memory foam mattress.
This feature makes an important difference when it comes to “tracking” mattress
movement.
Celestia Stretch is one of several fabric designs in the popular
Celestia line which allows mattress manufacturers an opportunity
to match material performance parameters as closely as possible to
the physical characteristics of the mattress itself, thereby offering
them a wide range of alternatives when it comes to optimizing FR
functionality across a wide selection of mattress designs.
According to Market Manager Ashutosh Karnik, Celestia Stretch is
probably the most unique of Freudenberg’s long line of Celestia
products, because its performance is based not only on flame suppression,
but also upon the ability to simulate the actual movement of the
mattress.
Celestia Stretch is manufactured by Freudenberg North America, a
division of Freudenberg & Company of Weinheim, Germany, a global
leader in the field of technical textiles with operations in 34 countries
and annual revenues in the $7 billion range.
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