Disclosed is a force transmission belt comprising a belt member that has a base portion (11) and a force transmission zone (12) thereon, and comprising a polyethelene coating (18) on at least one surface of the belt member; in order to increase the service life, the polyethylene coating (18) is subjected to radiation at a dose of 30 to 300 kGy to increase the wear resistance of the coating.

Disclosed is a force transmission belt comprising a belt member that has a base portion (11) and a force transmission zone (12) thereon, and comprising a polyethelene coating (18) on at least one surface of the belt member; in order to increase the service life, the polyethylene coating (18) is subjected to radiation at a dose of 30 to 300 kGy to increase the wear resistance of the coating.

A belt having an elastomeric body, a tensile cord embedded therein, and a tooth fabric having an increased value of Fabric Tensile Toughness as defined herein. The Fabric Tensile Toughness may be derived from properties of the yarns making up the fabric, such as yarn linear density, yarn ultimate elongation, yarn tensile strength, yarn packing density and weave ratio. The Fabric Tensile Toughness may be greater than 60 mJ/mm.sup.2. The belt may be a toothed belt of cast polyurethane with carbon fiber tensile cord. Also disclosed is a method of improving a known tooth cover fabric for a toothed power transmission belt involving selecting a different fabric having a higher Fabric Tensile Toughness than the known fabric and orienting the different fabric so the direction of highest Fabric Tensile Toughness is oriented in the longitudinal direction of the belt.