Engineering Comparison

Between Balsa Cores and Foam Cores in Boat Hull Shell Panels
By Jeff Schionning with Engineering support from D. Senn and N. Cossick, both experienced
engineers in the Marine Industry.

OVERVIEW:

The purpose of this comparison is to provide a better understanding of the main cores we use in boat
building and I hope will it will be helpful to you in your decision making process.
My personal preference in design is for balsa cores, certainly not because of any affiliation with
suppliers, it’s simply a choice made to achieve the lightest, strongest most durable shell structure we
can. These qualities combined with the fact that it is cheaper than foam, and lastly, it is a plantation
grown, renewable resource make this for me, an easy decision.
Every design sale leads to the discussion at some point about the choice of balsa or foam cores, ours
is a niche market where we specialise in very light multihull structures developed and tested over 30
years without failure, but when you view the mainstream commercial builders who mostly choose
foam cores it is understandable that clients question the validity of our decision.
We design mostly for one off construction, the boats are hand built to high standards and yet we use
very simple solutions creating very light reliable structures. It is easy to understand the appeal for
production builders to use foam cores as they are easy to use and more tolerant of lower build quality
even though as will be shown in this comparison that they have lower strength values.
The other main issue we discuss when choosing cores is water absorption so I will address this
potential problem as well.

This table provides information to help understand the different cores qualities.

SIMPLE ENGINEERING COMPARISON OF CORES - BALSA AND FOAM

Gurit Balsaflex Gurit Corecell M Foam

Balsaflex 110 Balsaflex 150 M80 M100

Density 110kg/m3 160kg/m3 85 kg/m3 100 kg/m3
Compression Strength 10.1 MPa 14.1 MPa 1.0 MPa 1.6 MPa
Compression Stiffness 3228 MPa 4376 MPa 71 MPa 107 MPa
Shear Strength 2.0 MPa 3.1 MPa 1.1 Mpa 1.5 Mpa
Shear Stiffness 146 MPa 189 MPa 29 MPa 41 MPa
Shear Elongation 58% 52%

BALSA

 The high stiffness of the balsa gives it very good support of thin skins against minor impact,
and this makes it a good choice for decks, topsides, superstructure, soles, floorboards etc
where it's resistance to small impacts such as dropping a winch handle or wandering around
in stiletto heels is very good.
 It is always important to make sure the balsa is well dried before laminating, particularly if any
elevated temperature cure or service is expected. If it is too wet, vapour pressure at high
temperatures can blow the skins off.
 Balsa infuses pretty well, although it does take up a fair bit of resin so the weight can be quite
high if not treated correctly.
 It's not very flexible for 2-D curvature, and although it is available in grid scored forms that can
be laid into a shape, the reality is that a lot more glue will be required to stick it in there.
 Having balsa available in forms such as DuFlex can be really good, as it is convenient to
create large structures from flat panels, and as mentioned it supports the thin skins well.
 Balsa has a really good history in marine use.
 ( Jeff comment: we have cases of balsa cored cats sustaining very little damage after being
smashed onto rock walls for many hours in strong wind and wave conditions.)

GURIT CORECELL

First thing is that Gurit has several flavours of Corecell, and they are not the same – fortunately
choosing the right one for yachts is pretty straightforward:

 Corecell A-foam – this was the original release to market (I think in the late 1990’s), and was
quite a revolutionary product at the time. It had structural performance that approached the
capability of the PVC-based foams of the time, both in terms of strength and high toughness.
Its advantage was that it’s SAN (styrene acrylonitrile) chemistry avoided the problems of
styrene attack and out-gassing that PVC was prone to, particularly with high temperature
cure. A-foam was quite thermoformable, but on the other hand it was not very dimensionally
stable at higher temperatures (>60°C), and it’s stiffness in both compression & shear was
relatively low so it didn’t support thin skins so well. A-foam has been improved upon &
replaced by M-foam.
 Corecell P-foam – This variant was released a few years after A-foam, and was better suited
for temperatures either in cure or in service above 60°C than A-foam. However it has been
largely supplanted by M-foam.
 Corecell S-foam – This is a specialist buoyancy foam that is actually quite heavy at upwards
of 200kg/m³, but has very high compressive strength & stiffness so it is suitable for use at
great depths – they quote up to 900m.
 Corecell T-foam – They market this as industrial grade foam, generally good static properties
but quite low elongation to failure hence low toughness. Certainly not the one to choose for a
dynamic loading environment, but presumably this would be a cheaper option that could be
appropriate for decks or bulkheads.
 Corecell M-foam – this is a useful development of A-foam for marine applications, and an
easy choice as an all-purpose core for yachts. The static properties are good and it has
excellent energy absorption & toughness, making it a very good choice for hull bottoms,
topsides and wing-decks. In fact it’s not a bad choice as a structural core for any of the
primary structure on a yacht – to obtain significantly better stiffness & strength performance
for weight you need to look towards Nomex honeycomb core materials, and then of course
you need to be careful to ensure sufficient toughness. For example a modern racing yacht
specification will often use M-foam in the forward bottom shell, and Nomex elsewhere for
minimum weight. Of course all this comes at a price…

CORECELL M FOAM

 Corecell M-foam is a high quality, high toughness structural foam core. It is a good performer
over a range of applications because the chemists have managed to provide reasonable
static strength and stiffness properties together with high elongation to failure and hence
toughness.
 As a result it is a high energy absorption material that is very appropriate in areas exposed to
dynamic or shock loading.
 The good static properties mean that it supports reasonably thin skins quite well, although it
doesn’t approach balsa in that regard.
 The allowable processing temperature is quite high for foams at around 100°C, and as it is
SAN based it does not suffer from the out gassing problems that PVC’s have at high temps.
This makes it suitable for a range of processes, so wet laminating, vacuum bagging, infusion
& moderate post cures are all fine in styrene based or epoxy resins, and it is also ok with pre-
pregs.
 Unfortunately its improved stability at high temperatures means it is not so easy to
thermoform as the old A-foam, but that’s just how the trade off works.
  M-foam is OK to cut and machine, although because of its toughness it will tend to heat the
blade or tool up and form a melted foam lump on the cutting edge, which then starts tearing
chunks off the surface rather than cleanly machining it. Cutting slowly and climb cutting to
keep the tool temperature down helps.
 It almost goes without saying, but of course it is closed cell foam, and its water uptake is very
small over a long length of time – exposure of the core edge to moisture is of no particular
concern. I don’t believe it has any problems with exposure to diesel or hydraulic fluid either.
 Because M-foam is available in a wide range of densities it can be selected and optimised –
much more so than balsa with its limited range.
 (Jeff comment: Note that other foams have now improved to similar qualities.)

Summary of above comparison

The table shows quite clearly the different values of the cores.
The compression strength of balsa 14.1 against M80’s 1.0 shows balsa’s resistance to damage.
The shear strength of balsa 3.1 against M80’s 1.1 shows the high shear resistance.
The shear stiffness of balsa 189 against M80’s 29 shows why a balsa shell is so much stiffer than a
foam shell.

HULL LAMINATES:

This exercise evaluates the comparative weight of some hull panels, one being our Schionning
Sch.S450.B, a panel specification we use in our designs and some similar light carbon laminates
used with Corecell M80 cores and includes a CE specification for our GF1500’C CE which is allowed
to use only 78% skin thickness when using carbon instead of E glass.

Laminate A: Uses 450g Carbon skins and 19mm Corecell M80 (85 kg/m3) Foam
Laminate B: Uses 450g Carbon skins and 30mm Corecell M130 (140 kg/m3) Foam
Laminate C: Is a CE approved hull panel from our G Force 1500’C CE – 15m cat
Laminate D: Is a panel we use in Schionning Designs with Balsa end grain core and S Glass laminate

The Engineer has serious reservations about using this foam sandwich laminate (below).
“Over the years we’ve pushed the boundaries in various areas, but this is one that would never be fit
for use as a hull laminate on the vessel”.

Laminate A. Weight Thickness

o o
450g HS carbon biaxial 0 /90 0.90 0.64

cell resin uptake allowance 0.30

3
19mm CoreCell M80 (85kg/m ) 1.62 19.00

cell resin uptake allowance 0.30

o o
450g HS carbon biaxial 0 /90 0.90 0.64

2
4.02 kg/m 20.28mm
The question on finding an equivalent to the Durakore panel is not that straight forward, however if the
shear carrying capacity was the determining factor, then the core would need to be 30mm CoreCell
M130.

Laminate B. Weight Thickness

o o
450g HS carbon biaxial 0 /90 0.90 0.64

cell resin uptake allowance 0.30

3
30mm CoreCell M130 (140kg/m ) 4.20 30.00

cell resin uptake allowance 0.30

o o
450g HS carbon biaxial 0 /90 0.90 0.64

2
6.60 kg/m 31.28mm

CE - Hull Bottom Category A vessel (15m vessel)

Properties used as per ISO12215-Part 5 appendix C.2.4. Note this would be the minimum possible
laminate weight allowable and assumes it complies in all other respects.

Assumed carbon fibre mass content wf = 0.50 (vacuum bagged)

Laminate C. Weight Thickness

o o
2 x 600g HS carbon biaxial 0 /90 2.40 1.70

cell resin uptake allowance 0.30

3 **
19mm CoreCell M80 (85kg/m ) 1.62 19.00

cell resin uptake allowance 0.30

o o
2 x 450g HS carbon biaxial 0 /90 1.80 1.28

2
6.42 kg/m 21.98mm

**
May actually need to be M100/130 to meet code requirements or change to Divinycell HP80 given
the length/displacement and risk of skin buckling, and/or require a thicker core.
Schionning - existing successful laminate configuration - Sch.S450.B

Existing Laminate Weight Thickness

450g S-glass +- 45 degree 0.75 1.93

*
19mm DuraKore 4.31 16.00

450g S-glass +- 45 degree 0.75 1.93

2
5.81 kg/m 19.86mm

*actual weight – note this is lower than the conservative number stated on datasheet. Skin thickness
noted is the combination of veneer and s-glass.

As we can see from the above laminates the light carbon option is simply not an option and the other
options are slightly heavier than the Sch.S450B panel.

It is important to realise the CE carbon panel Laminate C is set as a perfect example, there are only a
few builders capable of achieving this and the cost would be very high as they would need to use
carbon pre-preg with vacuum bagging and an autoclave oven or would need to lay the laminate in two
“shots” vacuuming each in sections then stripping the job and laminating the second “shot”.
Both very expensive operations with high consumable material costs plus many man hours involved.
Infusing Laminate C will add weight as the channels for resin flow and the size of the job will affect the
result, conservatively we would need to add at best 1 KG to the result but more likely at least 1.5 KG’s
making the practical result of Lam C.......7.4 KG’s to 8 KG’s M/2.
One could feel this is an acceptable weight result to achieve CE certification, there are of course more
areas increasing weight to achieve compliance but then think about the impact of shear and buckling.

PANEL BUCKLING MOMENTS

This area is not normally looked at or understood by the client who is considering his choice of
materials and certainly is not understood by most builders. It is simply something the engineers
considering CE have judged acceptable and in fairness there are many boats out there proving this
judgment to be reasonable. It needs to be considered especially with cats, that the majority are slow
heavy designs being very boxy in shape, giving high geometric support and most are not put into
stressed situations while lighter faster cats will test this engineering on a regular basis.

It is interesting to look at Buckling from an engineering perspective – this is supplied by Nick Cossick
from ATL Composites.

I did a quick review of the skin buckling comparison. This can be a potential failure mode when the
sandwich skin is in compression i.e. a panel flexing under water pressure. Essentially the skin can
push into the core under load if the stress gets to a level where the compression and shear resistance
of the core can no longer keep it in plane.

CE Carbon option - skin buckling stress 197.7 MPa (therefore it will not be possible for the carbon to
ever work to its maximum capacity). The only way to rectify this is to use a higher density core.

Current Schionning’s specification (Sch.S450.B ) - skin buckling stress 1,174MPa (therefore the
skins would not fail in buckling).
I'll have a look at some more comparisons, but these two are a couple of key aspects.
I feel this is a very important consideration, why use an expensive carbon skin option when it cannot
use its potential because of a poor core choice?

CORE SHEAR COMPARISON IN HIGH LOAD SLAMMING AREAS:

We look at the heavy carbon skin option of Laminate C compared to the Sch.S450.B and Duflex
balsa19mm standard panel set up in the bows where slamming will be worst, same load applied to all
examples.

Panel - 500mm x 500m (typical of a forward compartment)

Nominal applied sea pressure - 30kPa

Sch.S450.B panel and19mm Durakore™ - at 36% of maximum core shear capacity

Laminate C 19mm M80 Foam - at 98% of maximum core shear capacity

To achieve 36% shear capacity under the same conditions we need to increase the core thickness
and density of the M80 to either 50mm M80, 38mm M100 or 27mm for M130. These options are all
heavier than the balsa option.

These results I believe show end grain balsa core to be far superior to the foam option, not only
weight wise but far stronger in shear and buckling moments. Considering the “acceptable”
engineering solutions it’s obvious that slightly more load will result in shear and buckling failure while
the balsa option can be put under much higher loads without concern. A safety factor I would want in
an ocean going vessel.

Other simple practical advantages in normal cruising mode where dinghy, dock and beaching damage
will happen, balsa’s high compression strength avoids damage while foam damages very easily.

WATER ABSORBPTION

The most common foams used in boat building are 80 KG/m3 density, Corecell, Divinicell, Klegecell
and Airex brands, these have a closed cell structure while balsa is mostly about 150 KG’s m/3 or
Superlight at 80 KG m/3 and yes it can absorb water. There is some bad publicity surrounding timber
and balsa cores in particular. This is really a moot point since it is all about build quality. If you build
any structure badly there will be problems, both foam and balsa core needs care in sealing edges,
coring and back filling holes for fittings etc and DuFlex™ panels need added resin coats to fully seal
their surfaces, this is very basic boat building. If poorly built, balsa can soak up water - only if panel
surfaces are not sealed properly but all external panels are automatically sealed with cloth layers,
bogging layers for fairing covered by epoxy high build layers and finally top coat paint. Damage from
hitting sharp rocks etc can damage the shell external skin and in these cases water will get into the
crushed core, both foam and balsa are similar to repair, you dry out and fill then re-glass skins. Balsa
end grain has practically no absorption sideways across the grain so there’s no travel into the
surrounding core, if the damage had been present for a few years there would be perhaps 3 to 5mm
of wet core to simply dig out and repair just as you would foam.

Much of the bad rap for both foam and balsa cored boats stems from production methods using
contour cut cores leaving tracks throughout the core plus using polyester resins not fully waterproof.

COST

We feel our build system is the quickest and most economical, one off build method.

1. A simple cheap male mould made from MDF or cheap plywood, these station frames can be
hand cut or router cut from cutting files.
2. Strip planking is very easy to achieve, cloth laminates are very light and there is no real
advantage in vacuum bagging thereby reducing consumable material cost considerably.
3. Flat panels are used for all single plane parts, these can be self generated kit parts or full
router cut kit supplied. Products like Duflex™ are factory manufactured to very high quality
(Duflex™ and Durakore™ have Germanischer Lloyd approval) and very low resin to fibre
fraction ratios. They can be supplied anywhere in the world.

This combination of cutting edge design and engineering, exceptional composite products and
expertise make this a very competitive build solution ideally suited to low tech countries offering
cheap labour costs.

I will give you a sensible cost overview based on Australian product prices, these will change in
different countries and with different products and buying power but should give a good comparative
guide to clients none the less, and check builders who claim they can build a cat with CE carbon
laminates and Corecell foam at considerably cheaper prices.

Comparing costs of various build methods we need to look at the simple components going into the
build choice.

Using a product like Duflex™ may seem quite expensive initially but remembering it is a fully
complete panel balances the equation, it has both skins in place no glassing to do, core, resin and
cloth are supplied plus the labour component is included.
Duflex™ balsa 19mm panel = A$125 m/2
Durakore™ balsa 19mm planks = A$84 m/2

1. If we look at the Sch.S450.B laminate this uses Durakore™ we have these components:
450g S-glass skins with Durakore™ planking as the core.
S-glass cloth = A$24.60 m2 (x2)
Durakore™ plank = A$84 m2
Add resin = 0.8 KG m2 = A$18.40
Cost per m2 = A$151.60
Add labour to strip and glass.

2. Duflex™ Flat Panel Components. A$125 m2,

The added cost of router cutting and scarfing joins.= average of A$17.50 m2
Add resin squeegee coat A$ 6.6 m2 (both sides)
Cost per m2 = A$149.10

3. Carbon laminate C but for hull sides of GF15. (bigger cat will be heavier cloth)
Carbon 1000g (outside)
Corecell M80 = A$66 m2
Carbon 800g (inside)
Resin - infused = A$23.30
Carbon average cost A$70 KG = A$126 (supply to suit exact weight may be difficult)
Vac film = A$3.0 m2
Release film = A$3.80 m2
Bleed cloth = A$3.60
Peel ply = A$3.80
Sealing tape = A$1.0
Cost per m2 = A$230.50
(Note: We still need to add labour to the above Carbon this will be quite high with the bagging
process.)

Another important consideration is the cost of the mould that is required, there is little advantage
infusing the shell if you cannot do both inside and outside laminates at the same time this will involve
a female mould of some sort. Infusing each side individually with the heavier laminates gives better
compaction and can then use a simpler mould but labour and consumables are high and using a foam
core with little stability needs a mould with good support usually fully supported with stringers.
We have a few examples where two cats are built using these different methods and the strip planked
first hull shell is complete about the time the other project’s mould is ready to use, much faster and
cheaper and this is to create the slower compound curved sections of the boat, once you start the
much faster and cheaper Duflex™ assembly, the build speeds up considerably while the infused
system remains the same high cost for the complete shell surface.
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