What Is a Honeycomb Core?
Honeycomb Core is a structure consisting of hexagonal columns arranged without gaps.
Honeycomb means beehive, and it is shaped like a beehive with holes. Because more than 90% of its structure is air, it is a lightweight material. It is also strong and shock absorbent, and is used in applications where lightness and strength are required.
Because it has many voids, it also has a rectifying effect that regulates the flow in a certain direction. The rectifying effect is also useful for showcases and wind tunnels.
Applications of Honeycomb Cores
Honeycomb Core is used in fields where light weight and high rigidity are required, making it an ideal material.
1. Aerospace and Automotive Industries
Honeycomb cores are used as structural materials for airplanes and spacecraft, as well as for automobile body parts and bicycle frames. Honeycomb Core is lightweight yet highly rigid, helping to improve fuel efficiency and achieve a high level of safety in aircraft.
2. Building Industry
It is sometimes used for building exterior panels, interior partition walls, and ceiling materials. Its light weight reduces overall building weight and improves durability against natural disasters such as earthquakes.
3. Building Industry
May be used for products such as ski boards and snowboards.
Properties of Honeycomb Core
Honeycomb Core is very rigid due to its structure. Rigidity is the ability of an object to resist external forces without deformation. Because of its rigidity, Honeycomb Core is not easily deformed even when subjected to impact, and thus exhibits stable performance.
Since most of the interior is air, it also has high thermal insulation properties, making it useful for thermal insulation applications. In particular, paper honeycomb, which has low thermal conductivity of the material itself, exhibits excellent heat insulation properties.
Types of Honeycomb Core
Honeycomb Core includes Aluminum Honeycomb, Aramid Honeycomb, and Paper Honeycomb.
1. Aluminum Honeycomb Core
There are a variety of metallic Honeycomb Cores, but aluminum is the lightest of the metals and also has excellent compressive strength. Aluminum foil is formed into a honeycomb structure, and its lightness and strength are used in various fields such as automobiles, trains, and aircraft.
2. Aramid Honeycomb Core
Plastic Honeycomb Core is made from aramid, which has excellent strength and heat resistance. Aramid has high tensile strength, impact resistance, light weight, and flexibility. Aramid also offers fire resistance and chemical and thermal stability.
They are increasingly used in aircraft, replacing aluminum honeycomb. However, it also has disadvantages such as dimensional change due to moisture absorption and high cost.
3. Paper Honeycomb Core
Paper is molded into a honeycomb structure. Kraft paper is used. It is lighter than aluminum and aramid. It is also an environmentally friendly material because it is recyclable. It is used in construction materials, packing materials, and partitions for display spaces.
Being paper, it has weaknesses in water resistance and heat stability. Currently, when compensating for the weakness, there is a method of adding a porous silica film to the surface.
Other Information on Honeycomb Core
How Honeycomb Core is Manufactured
Honeycomb structures are fabricated by gluing sheets together. There are two methods of manufacturing honeycomb cores: the tension method and the corrugated method, with the tension method being the most common. The principle of the tension method is explained here.
1. Material Cutting and Pretreatment
First, the required amount of material is cut from a roll of raw material and formed into sheets. The cut sheets are degreased as a pretreatment. In the case of metallic materials, etching is performed.
2. Lamination
After the pretreatment is completed, adhesive is applied to the sheet. The adhesive is not applied to the entire sheet, but rather to areas that are coated and areas that are not coated in a linear pattern at regular intervals. Layers of adhesive-coated sheets are stacked on top of each other.
3. Stretching
By stretching the layered sheets (unfolding them from their folded state), the parts not coated with adhesive are lifted up to form the Honeycomb Core. Depending on the application, a sandwich panel structure may be formed by attaching a surface material to both sides of the Honeycomb Core. In this case, surface treatment is performed on the surfaces to be laminated.