Shaping the foam: What are the advantages and disadvantages of the various core forming techniques, cold bending, thermoforming, using scrim core?
Cold bending is the easiest way to form a foam, however, for most foams it is limited to relatively large radii and thin sheets. The exception is AIREX R63, of which even quite thick sheets can be cold formed to very small radii. Scrim cloth foam core is widely used when building 3 or 2-dimensional shaped sandwich parts. Since the slits of the scrim foam have to be filled with core bonding adhesive or resin the sandwich part will increase in specific weight. Resin filled slits and even more so not completely filled slits interrupt the foam core stress field, resulting in stress concentrations. Cracks can easily be build at these positions leading to structural failure at loads well below design load. Thermoformed foam parts allow for a continuous load path, leading to long life sandwich parts with a lower specific weight.
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