Rifeng PMI Structural Foam Cores For Aviation & Aerospace
Rifeng PMI structural foam cores material lightweight and durability give a significant advantage for the aircraft designing and manufacturing, also contribute the high fuel efficiency, weight reduction, and increased payload. Aerospace is one of the first composite application industries.
Composite structures itself themselves can maintain their strength over time and would not corrode, hence reduces the inspection, maintenance and repair. The excellent properties of Rifeng PMI foam cores made the aerospace structure have better impact resistance, more safety, better corrosion and impact resistance.
At present, the components of aircraft composite sandwich structure include the landing gear door, radome, floor, engine cowling, flight control surface (flaps, ailerons, elevators, spoiler etc.), wing-body fairing, winglet and foam-filled A-shape stringer to strengthen the skin.
Compared with the honeycomb, foam core material can significantly reduce processing cost, decrease the water absorption during operation and reduce maintenance costs.
The increasing replacement of conventional metal structures with composites, and particularly carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP), has been an ongoing trend in airplane and helicopter engineering for years. In the area of high-performance fiber composites, sandwich structures are the preferred choice for the light yet stiff designs.
The selection of the optimal sandwich structure is usually based on the different conditions associated with load-bearing capacity, production, and component design. The aerospace industry has long made use of PMI foam as a lightweight, structural core material that also reduces the cost of sandwich materials because of its process reliability.
Criteria for the selection of the most suitable design include:
As an example, helicopter rotor blades are increasingly produced from sandwich composite materials. In this case, the PMI foam core assists with the placement of the UD-fibers and fabrics at the lay-up. With the defined few oversize of the core the elastic behavior and the thermal expansion will generate an in-mold-pressure. It will consolidate thick composite beam, improve the local buckling of the structure, keep the carbon fiber direction.
PMI foam allows the cost-effective production of highly integral structures. The savings in subsequent phases, such as assembly, component testing (NDI), and coating, can be considerable. As an example, the surface quality of a foam sandwich structure (without the telegraphing effects that occur with honeycomb cores) can result in significant savings in the surface preparation for coating.
We can offer optimized cell sizes for resin absorption, compatible with various resin viscosity.