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US 10,611,100 B2Granted
Buoyancy module
Assignee3M Innovative Properties Company
InventorsYong K. Wu, Siegmund Papp, Andrew J. Peterson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Buoyancy modules (200) are made from a foam composition that includes a combination of a thermally fusable powder and glass microspheres heated in a manner that provides a hardened syntactic foam having both low density and a high degree of compressive strength. An outer barrier (220) may enclose the buoyancy module.
Claims12
A method of making a foam composition comprising:
- obtaining a mixture by blending the following components:
- 35 to 60 volume percent thermally fusable powder;
- and
- 40 to 65 volume percent glass microspheres, each amount based on the overall volume of the mixture;
- and
- while applying a load to a mold containing the mixture to shape the mixture,
- heating the thermally fusable powder under a vacuum to provide a hardened syntactic foam, the vacuum being sufficient to remove substantially all embedded voids in the hardened syntactic foam such that the hardened syntactic foam has at most 1.5 percent by volume of such embedded voids, excluding voids associated with the glass microspheres.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.