Material for resilient, conforming pads, cushions, supports or the like and method

Claim 1

A conforming padding comprising: a material consisting of a cohered mass formed of discrete hollow resilient thermoplastic synthetic-resin particles and a bonding agent, said discrete particles having a density of about 0.02 to 0.3, and being formed as resiliently deformable elastically shape-restorative intact hollow microballoons having a thin resilient gas-impermeable shell enclosing and confining a gas, said shell consisting of a high-molecular-weight gas-impermeable copolymer, said bonding agent adherently interconnecting said discrete particles into a mobile, resilient coherent, plastically deformable mass at body temperature, said bonding agent being polyisobutylene with a molecular weight of substantially 3,000 to 7,500 and having a softening point lower than that of said shell copolymer and said bonding agent being flowably plastic at about body temperature and having little plasticizing action on said bubble-forming copolymer, said bonding agent being a thermoplastic polymer having a plastic softening point at or slightly above body temperature, said high-molecular-weight copolymer for forming the gas-impermeable shells being selected from the group of copolymers of vinylidene chloride with acrylonitrile, having a molecular weight in the range of 55,000 to 1,100,000 and containing within the hollow cavity of said shells a gas inert to said copolymer; and a flexible envelope enclosing said material consisting of the microballoons and the bonding agent.