aircraft flooring

[Ryan Lynam]

We have been given a few sheets of aircraft flooring from Bombardier and Air Canada (our sponors) and we are considering using it for our ramp and end-game device. It is a composite honeycomb that is sandwiched with carbon fibre on one sheet and aluminum on another. We have very little knowledge of this material and whether it will be permitted in our final robot construction. Has anyone ever worked with this stuff? Will there be any problems using it on our robot? We can certainly tell you that it is really light and strong, but we have no idea how to come up with a price value for it.

Thanks.

Ryan

[ebmonon36]

We have used it on our robots for the last 3 years, and will also be used on this year's robot. It is a fairly easy material to work with and yes, very strong. There should be a picture showing up soon from our team with an example of what we are using it for this year. As for price, I'm not exactly sure how much it runs for.
Eric

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Ryan,
As long as it is allowed under the flowchart and does not contain hazardous materials, it should be allowed. When in doubt ask the Q&A but if it is allowed, you must come up with a price. If you are claiming a COTS item (which I think you would) it has to be available to to other teams and the price they would pay is the price you must enter in your BOM.
I can't wait to see your ramp!

[Rohith Surampudi]

Originally Posted by Ryan Lynam

We have been given a few sheets of aircraft flooring from Bombardier and Air Canada (our sponors) and we are considering using it for our ramp and end-game device. It is a composite honeycomb that is sandwiched with carbon fibre on one sheet and aluminum on another. We have very little knowledge of this material and whether it will be permitted in our final robot construction. Has anyone ever worked with this stuff? Will there be any problems using it on our robot? We can certainly tell you that it is really light and strong, but we have no idea how to come up with a price value for it.

Thanks.

Ryan

the material you speak of is from what i understand very popular this year, and is infact permitted, from the information you provided i cant tell much, however composite honeycomb sheets are generally much stronger than plywood, and used in many applications, however their strength depends on the inner capsules as well as the width of the plastic coating on the outside, more info can be found on the website www.nida-core.com , i have seen many samples of this material, it is very light, as well as very hard, seeing as it is the grade used for airplane flooring, id assume its upward of 120lb per square foot, however be sure to look through the data and specifics on the nidacore website, some truss-work may be required to re-enforce the sheet, the material is very very reliable.

good luck,
rohith

[Bill_Hancoc]

just a heads up the link for the nida core website is www.nida-core.com

[Gary Dillard]

We are using a similar material, scrap that was donated to us by Pratt & Whitney, COTS material made by Hexcel. It is 1 inch thick aluminum honeycomb with 18oz cloth face sheets. The raw material price that they paid was $1100 for a 4 x 7 sheet, which is what I'm using for our cost basis. The largest single component we are using is a 28 x 36 piece which prices out at about $275 - less than the $400 allowable.

I spoke with the engineers at Nida-Core (they are about an hour north of us) and they have a similar material; It is COTS - the core is stocked but laminated sheets are not normally stocked. They have about a 2 week turnaround to laminate it so it's well within the guidelines. They also said they have been bombarded with calls from FIRST teams.