EC! Laminate Sample #12:
- Reinforcement: 200g Twill-weave Carbon 0/90
- Resin: Hexcel M9.6H
- Core: 3.85mm 40kg Nomex (or other aramid from the scrap bin)
Panel weight: 0.86kg per square meter / 2.75 oz per square foot
Thickness 4.4mm / 0.17in
Overview:
This one is a lot like what I was trying to do way back in Laminate Sample #1 – make a very light carbon/honeycomb panel that was useful but not structural. I wanted something that would be stiff enough to form a large-ish shell with a complex shape and minimal support. This one is the pre-preg version with thinner core – and less resin!
The skin plies are Hexcel 200g 2×2 twill carbon prepreg with a Hexcel M9.6H low-temperature pre-preg resin. The core is a 4mm(ish) thick Nomex honeycomb (it is probably actually “aramid” honeycomb but it came from the scrap bag so I don’t know). There’s not much resin in here so the skins are dry and there are lots of pin-holes.
If the material is 45% resin (165g/m^2) then stealing 10% of that resin to bond the core would leave a pretty optimal 35% resin content in the skin – but only 16g of resin per square meter to bond each skin to the core. Or to put it in the context of this sample – 1.5g per side for the one square foot! I’m sure it took more than that – so this is hardly an example of ideal practice – and it’s pretty flimsy stuff if you watch the part where I break the strip of offcut. But still – for standard weight 200g woven pre-preg, it actually does make a usable panel. For better core bonds, a 100g or so glue film would be ideal – maybe less if you can get it. That would bring the panel up to 1060g/m^2 (3.5oz/ft^2) or so which is still feather-weight but a little more robust.
Video:
Laminate Schedule:
