Category Archives: Core Materials

Polystyrene Foam

This is the material used in aircraft wings and control surfaces, as well as surfboards. It was chosen because its strength properties are well matched to the need of these particular structures, and because it can be hot-wire contoured without generating poisonous gases. It has the strong disadvantage of being soluble in Styrene monomer, which […]

Syntactic Foam

The word “syntactic” simply means that the foam is made by mixing micro balloons, ceramic spheres, or other lightweight aggregate, with a resin system. This results in the density of the material before cure being the same as the density after cure. This is different from most other foams, which are expanded during cure to […]

Foam Cores

A number of foamed plastic materials are widely used in boat hulls, as well as in home- built aircraft. They are a bit higher in cost, but are lighter and easy to work with. Each of these material families has a set of mechanical properties, physical properties, working and handling characteristics, and a cost structure […]