A new carbon foam manufacturing process has been developed resulting in a low-cost, high-strength material that has been proving attractive for creation of tooling for composite parts. Composites are stronger, lighter, and less subject to corrosion and fatigue than traditional materials used for fabrication of advanced structures. Tools to manufacture these composite parts must be rigid, durable and have the ability to offer a coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) closely matching the composites. Current technology makes it difficult to match the CTE of a composite part in the curing cycle with anything other than a carbon composite or a nickel iron alloy such as Invar?. Fabrication of metallic tooling requires many expensive stages of long duration with a large infrastructure investment. While carbon fiber reinforced polymer resin composite tooling has a shorter lead-time, production use is limited due to durability concerns. The new carbon foam material, CFOAM?, has a compatible CTE and good durability that make it an attractive alternative as a tooling material. Use of CFOAM in tooling for carbon composites is advantageous because of its low cost, weight advantages, machinability, vacuum integrity, and curing processes compatibility. Large-scale tooling case studies will be presented detailing carbon foam's potential for tooling applications.
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