6. Applications

Manufacturers of sandwich core materials are anticipating the entry of sandwich composites into a growing number of applications where strength, stiffness and lightweighting will be important criteria.

Historically, the concept of separating two faces working in combination is attributed to the Frenchman Duleau in 1820. It was not until more than a century later that the first mass-market use was made of this construction. During the Second World War, for example, the Mosquito aircraft produced by De Havilland in England featured a fuselage made from a plywood/balsa/plywood sandwich structure (figure 33 ). Similarly, the U.S. Navy's Catalina PBY seaplane used sandwich panels (balsa core and aluminum skins) to withstand repeated impacts on the...