Talk Composites - The Forum for Advanced Composites

Aluminium Honeycomb Expansion technique

http://www.talkcomposites.com/Topic34077.aspx

By hwahmed - 10/29/2019 10:46:49 PM

Hello,

I have ordere some Aluminium honey comb core.

I have tried a number of techniques to expand it without good results.

Can you please recommend a method that can be done by hand or basic shop tools. 

thank you,

By Rich (Staff) - 10/30/2019 11:20:31 AM

Hello hwahmed,

We do not expand the honeycomb prior to shipping simply because the foil cells are very easy to damage and the chance of it surviving through the courier system is very low.

Expanding the honeycomb should be relatively straight forward:

Start by using your fingers to tease some of the cells open at the edges of the block. Once you've done this we use a simply 'puller' fashioned from a strip of wood with a series of nails in. We hook the nails through the open cells and then just pull the whole assembly to open the cells. As you expand it you can unhook the cells from over the nails and move them across so they are slightly closer together (the width of the honeycomb reduces as it becomes properly expanded). It might not sound too sophisticated but it works well and the commercial expanders aren't much different.

The sheet should over expand in both directions slightly to account for any damage caused to the outermost cells.

I hope this helps, please let us know if you need any more information.