It is written that "Un-expanded blocks can be easily expanded into their full sheet form without the need for sophisticated equipment." - we have bought un-expanded aluminium honeycomb blocks to do some tests for my master course research - how can the aluminium honeycomb block be expanded evenly into it's full sheet form without the special equipment?
Thank you in advance!

Hi,

To expand the honey comb manually you have a couple of possible methods, the first which is fine for the larger cell size especially is to simply pull the sides apart by hand with one person at each end gradually working side to side untill it is fully expanded.

The other method is to start by using your fingers to tease some of the cells open at the edges of the block. Once you’ve done this use a simple ‘puller’ fashioned from a strip of wood with a series of nails in. Hook the nails through the open cells and then just pull the whole assembly to open the cells. As you expand it you might want to switch to another strip of wood with some slightly closer spaced nails (the width of the honeycomb reduces as it becomes properly expanded).

It might not sound too sophisticated but it works well and the basic commercial expanders aren’t much different.

Paul Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical