Which foam?
05-23-2022, 12:45 AM
#1
Which foam?
Hi all,
I'm building a large Vickers Wellington, and intend to make the internal geodetic structure from the "basket" of geodetic members as per the original. I'm considering making the required lattice in a stiff foam, then wrapping and pinning it with several layers of carbon-fibre "bandages" employing different wefts to gain torsional strength when the epoxy sets. The foam will remain inside the channels. So I'm looking for a closed cell foam cut to a rectangular cross-section of circa 14mm x 7mm, that's able to both bend and twist into "arches", and with suitable notches, interlinks with foam members to form a sufficiently strong lattice-structure that it doesn't deform when the first wrap of carbon-fibre is applied. I figure that once the 1st layer of carbon fibre has cured, it will then have more than adequate strength thereafter.
Ideally the foam strips will be able to curve around forms approximately the size of a soccer-ball, without any observable deformation of the foam due to twisting/curving of that sort of shape. Problem is, I don't know much about foams available. From what I've described, can anyone suggest a class of foams that might work in this project?
I'm building a large Vickers Wellington, and intend to make the internal geodetic structure from the "basket" of geodetic members as per the original. I'm considering making the required lattice in a stiff foam, then wrapping and pinning it with several layers of carbon-fibre "bandages" employing different wefts to gain torsional strength when the epoxy sets. The foam will remain inside the channels. So I'm looking for a closed cell foam cut to a rectangular cross-section of circa 14mm x 7mm, that's able to both bend and twist into "arches", and with suitable notches, interlinks with foam members to form a sufficiently strong lattice-structure that it doesn't deform when the first wrap of carbon-fibre is applied. I figure that once the 1st layer of carbon fibre has cured, it will then have more than adequate strength thereafter.
Ideally the foam strips will be able to curve around forms approximately the size of a soccer-ball, without any observable deformation of the foam due to twisting/curving of that sort of shape. Problem is, I don't know much about foams available. From what I've described, can anyone suggest a class of foams that might work in this project?
