The Structural Foam that Has that Certain Something
The principle of increasing the rigidity of components by means of sandwich structures is now well established. ROHACELL?, a PMI-based structural foam, has been used for this purpose in fiber-composite technology for more than 30 years. And it's no accident that ROHACELL? still predominates in the area of high-grade lightweight construction. The product owes its success to such outstanding features as:
- excellent mechanical properties over a wide temperature range, even at low densities;
- high temperature resistance up to 220°C;
- unique compressive creep behavior for processing up to 180°C and 0.7 mPa;
- excellent dynamic strength;
- and cell sizes that can be adapted for each processing method (autoclave, resin injection, press molding, Quickstep?, etc.).
The 100 percent-closed-cell foam absorbs resins only in the truncated cells at the surface. This prevents excess resin from infiltrating further into the foam, which would add unnecessary weight, and also helps during vacuum fixation during mechanical processing. ROHACELL? can be processed by shaping or turning, among other methods, and can be excellently thermoformed at low cost, too.