[PSUBS-MAILIST] Foam

[Cliff Redus via Personal_Submersibles]

Scott

When I cast the syntactic foam for the R300, http://www.psubs.org/design/PDF/SyntacticFoam.pdf, I used a mixture of macrospheres, microspheres and epoxy.  Biggest cost was the macropsheres which were designed to meet my design depth. Got some help from Dr. Phil on how to make syntactic foam which was helpful.  The macrospheres were from  Cummings Corp.  My finished cost for these castings was  $156/cuft . With large castings, you have to be carful not to have cracking due to the exothermic reaction.  To mitigate this, I worked with an epoxy supplier to specify a catalyst that slowed down the cure time.  It was a lot of work to sort out the mixtures percentages of each component to get the desired density and strength.  I did a lot of experimenting in my shop as well.  Most manufactures are going to be reluctant to sell syntactic foam components to home built submersible community for liability reasons. While syntactic foam is the primary way the big boys
 build added buoyancy on deep boats, and ROVs, its costly.   My suggestion would be to try and build buoyancy by increasing the size of the pressure hull.  Steel is cheap.

 

 Cliff 
 
 From: via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> 
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:03 AM
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Foam
  


Holy cow. I got a quote back from http://www.synfoam.com/. For a 12"x12"x5" block of foam the cost is $595 each! I am going to have to rethink my tactics. 

Thanks, 
Scott Waters  

-------- Original Message --------
>Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Foam
>From: David Colombo via Personal_Submersibles
><personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
>Date: Mon, January 12, 2015 7:35 am
>To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion
><personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
>
>
>Hi Scott, 
>Here is a link to a synfoam site . 
>http://synfoam.com/synfoam-mw-low-cost-deep-sea-syntactic-foam.html 
>
> 
>
>
>Best Regards,
>David Colombo
>
>804 College Ave
>Santa Rosa, CA. 95404
>(707) 536-1424
>http://www.seaquestor.com/
>
>
>
>On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:21 AM, via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
>
>Can someone give me the basics on syntactic foam? 
>>
>>*What is the buoyancy per cubic inch? 
>>
>>*How do you shape it? 
>>
>>*How much does it cost? 
>>
>>*Where do you get it? 
>>
>>I essentially have no experience with it what so ever. 
>>
>>Thanks, 
>>Scott Waters
>>_______________________________________________
>>Personal_Submersibles mailing list
>>Personal_Submersibles at psubs.org
>>http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles
>>
>>
> 
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