quote:

Originally posted by spunk639:
Is the honeycomb super compressed between the skin? Just curious thinking about the pressure changes in the atmosphere, if you know.

No, it's a structural thing, it's not meant to compress. It's a cohesive unit, the skin of the plane, be it aluminum, fiberglass, or carbon fiber. The honeycomb core is bonded to both sides, in and out. None of it is meant to compress, it's meant to keep shape while being extremely light.

That's not even my information from my engineer at Boeing, that's information from one of the lead composites instructors at Boeing... who was the instructor for a college composites course I passed last week. So while I'm not a subject matter expert, I just spent forty hours learning a guy who is, and this is all stuff he taught us.

Rehosting Kkina's image that's not showing:


So you've got a layer of paint (the white stuff), a layer of carbon fiber (the black stuff), the honeycomb core that's bonded to the carbon fiber, then the next layer of carbon fiber that it's also bonded to, then paint.

Yes, that appears to be Nomex honeycomb. The honeycomb holds the inner and outer panels a fixed distance apart and gives the assembly its strength and shape.
This is the same concept of corrugated cardboard. You can use a thin outer skin separated by the core and make a very rigid and lightweight panel.

https://www.toraytac.com/produ...-CoreAerospace-Grade