What Is Syntactic Foam?

Syntactic foam has long been surrounded by confusion in terms of its origin and name. The word syntactic is most commonly used in reference to language. It is derived from the Greek word "suntaktikos", which means putting together. Most specifically, syntactic is used in describing grammar, word arrangements and sentence structure. The word will most often appear in the form of syntactic arrangement, syntactics, syntactic structure, or syntax. Most recently the word syntactic has appeared in the world of computer programming lexicon, again in regard to the structure of the programming language. Similarly, it has also found its way into the description of the structure of music.

The term "syntactic foam" first appeared in the 1960's. It has come to describe a class of material which has pre-formed hollow spheres as a main constituent. The hollow spheres may be made up of glass, ceramic, polymer, or even metal. The binder is generally a polymer but may also be a metal or ceramic. The "syntactic" portion refers to the "ordered structure" provided by the hollow spheres. The foam term is used simply because of the cellular nature of the material. The original syntactic foams were constructed of hollow glass spheres with either polyester or epoxy as their binder. Their earliest use was in the marine industry providing buoyancy for subsea apparatus such submersible vehicles and oceanographic equipment. (This may also help explain how the "foam" term was so easily applied to the syntactic description. The syntactic foam replaced traditional blown foams in many applications).

Today syntactic foams are used in a wide variety of applications. The material has undergone many changes since the early days providing simple buoyancy. It has also been appeared in a variety of ways in text as both misnomer or trademark such as syntact, syntax, syntac, syntec, syntax, syntac foam, syntetic foam, syntectic, or even synthetic foam.