Hi guys, 

New in this forum. Great to see so many solutions and help provided by the members here.

I am looking to replace aluminium honeycomb with foam as a core material in the marine environment. There are some advantages listed below but maybe you guys can help with more detailed comparisons in terms of the technical differences between the 2 core materials. Feel free to add in the advantages or disadvantages below. Cheers. 

Advantages of the foam panels are as follows.

•    Lightweight - comparable weight to aluminium honeycomb.
•    Best cost to performance ratio, >200% saving compared to similar aluminium honeycomb panels.
•    Specific compression strength of the foam core was 72% higher than the compression strength of the aluminium core
•    No potential corrosion problems in a salt-water environment like aluminium honeycomb
•    Specific \ multi-layered density layup for individual requirements
•    Greater thermal and acoustic insulation compared to aluminum honeycomb
•    Can be processed into flat, curved or even compound shapes. Varying thickness within a panel can be achieved with a custom build.
•    Good screw retention for higher densities

Disdvantages of the foam panels are as follows.

• Lower flash point as compared to aluminium honeycomb(~600°C) versus foam (~200°C)
• Lower tensile strength per weight ratio 

With regard to the lower flash point, does this really matter? If you have a heat source hot enough to heat the core to over 200 deg through the carbon, the flash point of the core material is the least of your problems :-)