Syntactic foam made of glass hollow microspheres and epoxy vinyl ester resin is manufactured by using a new manufacturing method and its impact behavior is studied in terms of protection parameters. Experimental results for impact force and stress as functions of specimen diameter were found to be in reasonable agreement with predictions based on a model. Also, some compression properties of the foam were investigated. It was found that there is similarity in compressive failure mode between pseudostatic and impact loadings. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.