Funded by the Navy into Phase II, Haddad Consulting LLC is structured around development of a hybrid buoyancy foam - a new technology lightweight macrospheres in a matrix of closed-cell blown foam. The hybrid composite is designed to combine compressive strength and stiffness of macrospheres with the resilience of a blown foam to meet the specified threshold performance properties . Ondications are that manufacture would involve using thin film UV-curable core-shell rubber modified vinyl ester technology for damage tolerance, with milled carbon fiber reinforcement. Closely packed in highly ordered binary arrays using additive layering techniques for maximum volume packing factor in virtually net shapes, the macrospheres could be encapsulated with carbon reinforced rigid poly-DCPD, polyurethane or BPA/BPF epoxy blown foam as a binder, engineered for high modulus and resilience in the ocean temperature range. The foam could be commercialized for high-performance nonmilitary applications such as cable buoyancy for windmills, lightweight core material for fabricating windmill blades, as well as shallow water pipeline buoyancy
