Closed Cell Environment Floats

Closed Cell Environment Floats

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Situation

A private environmental monitoring agency was looking fora solution to protect their floating buoys. The buoys carry a variety of waterborne instruments designed to collect environmental data such as contaminants during construct on projects, oxygen levels during fish spawning seasons, or other desired data.

The typical float is constructed of closed cell foam pieces glued together. The agency was having difficulty protecting the foam. When fully up-fitted with data collection equipment, the buoys weigh in excess of 100 lbs. The foam was getting damaged during transport and launch. The agency was considering redesigning their floats with harder and more expensive fiberglass.

Procedure

The LINE-X store received the buoys in batches of 20-30 from the environmental monitoring company.

The franchise cleaned the foam of excess dirt and debris before encapsuling the foam with yellow tinted LINE-X XS-350 protective coating. No primer was required due to the encapsul on and tenacious bonding properties of the foam.

After applying the XS-350, LINE-X ASPART-X was used to provide UV stabilise on of the colour.

Solution

The local LINE-X franchise offered to coat the foam buoys in XS-350 with a safety yellow ASPART-X topcoat for visibility. XS-350 provides a tough and less expensive alternative, when compared to redesigning the buoys with fiberglass.

Results

The LINE-X XS-350 provided a tough and buoyant solution. This allowed the agency to retain their current less expensive buoy design and avoid purchasing an expensive fiberglass buoy. The Safety Yellow ASPART-X met Coast Guard requirements for buoys located in inland waterways.