Monocoque construction using aluminium honeycomb
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Anyone had any experience of this?

Particularly interested in the bonding and jointing methods.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

I assume you're talking about an aluminium sandwich board. And not using aluminium honeycomb inside a composite construction, as I've done a fair bit of that.

This is FORD country, on a quiet day you can hear Vauxhalls rusting.

Yes, aluminium sandwich board.

I've been reading up on it. Seems the best way is to glue it together, but the technology to do it properly is closely guarded by the manufacturers.

Some DIY methods on kit car forums though.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

What are you looking to do with it? A few people I know were involved in the rs200 floor pan, which was made with it.
It's a fairly simple prep process for glueing it together, although the best glue is a bit pricey!

This is FORD country, on a quiet day you can hear Vauxhalls rusting.

worked on a project that used a lot of this once. Gluing with high end aerospace standard glue and riveting were the main forms of joinery. In areas where the alu plate is of a decent thickness you can also tig it.

Thinking monocoque floor pan and a multi-point cage to add rigidity.

More semi-monocoque actually.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Some useful info on stress analysis here:

http://orca.cf.ac.uk/17318/1/Design%2C_dev...manufacture.pdf

Fold and glue with araldite

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Thats how they build alot of the slr my landlord works for mclaren, they just glued them together

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Searching is all you need on TurboMinis

Apparently the Lotus Elise as well.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

New one or old one?

All of them I believe.

Extruded sections rather than honeycomb, but with the odd rivet to stop it peeling apart

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Tis true, you can see the glue coming from under the seams in the footwells in alot of them!

Any specific bonding/prep/construction info you need, let me know.

This is FORD country, on a quiet day you can hear Vauxhalls rusting.

I don't like the idea of DIY gluing something that could kill you if it failed.

A simple aliminium monocoque made from sheet and tigged together is far more appealing. Just need to put some extra strength into the flat parts of the stucture.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Ahh I really want one as well

On 5th Oct, 2012 Paul S said:
All of them I believe.

Extruded sections rather than honeycomb, but with the odd rivet to stop it peeling apart

This is FORD country, on a quiet day you can hear Vauxhalls rusting.

I guess you could also do a small destructive test. You could prepare and bond two small pieces together and do some compression, tension, shear or torsion tests or whatever else you need to satisfy yourself that it will hold.

Jean

http://www.jbperf.com/

In the case of the honeycomb, the normal facing panel is only 0.5mm thick which generally means that rivets will not add much to the strength of the structure.

Highly stressed areas, like the floor/heal board/boot floor junction is a nightmare to design in honeycomb.

Edited by Paul S on 5th Oct, 2012.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

I've never seen honeycomb with a 0.5 skin, only ever over 1mm. But then we use pretty heavy duty stuff. I reckon it's a damn site more easy than you reckon!

This is FORD country, on a quiet day you can hear Vauxhalls rusting.

DIY sources of honeycomb are very scarce.

The only one I can find is the Hexcel stuff available through Amber Composites and it's all 0.5mm.

The Cardiff guys in the link above used it and even bonded on an extra 0.5mm layer to thicken it near high stress areas.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Amber will make honeycomb to any thickness if you ask, believe me, we've done it. I'll ask Monday morning what the options are. I've seen higher than 16 gauge.

This is FORD country, on a quiet day you can hear Vauxhalls rusting.

That would be too easy.

Looking for a challenge.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Did you see the eppisode on Discovery channel about Lotus Elise design and build?


It's long but interesting; something around glueing just before 30mins, haven't seen the whole movie so you have to see what is further on in the movie yourself...


Google Plexus (MA300 or MA310 = slower drying) this is a Methacylate glue.
This is used at Volvo, Ford, John Deere,...

A trick to glueing Aluminium is (obviously thoroughly cleaned surfaces) to rub the wet glue into the aluminium surfaces with wire brush (or less prefered, sanding paper) before putting them together.
Really messy but apparently increases adhesion.

Edited by Yo-Han on 6th Oct, 2012.

Dazed and Confused....

Thanks for that.

Interesting that were eventually able to glue joints that were stronger than a weld.



EDIT: Ooh - Plexus are just down the road - handy :)

Edited by Paul S on 6th Oct, 2012.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."