The history of composites in F1

[xpensive]

Interested in the subject, found this piece on Robin Herd and his work with Mallite, was this the first sandwich composite in F1?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallite

[marcush.]

no sir :

Owen Maddock ,John coopers Draftsman /Designer had come up with a revolutionary concept already in 1960s
A formed aluminium outer skin -aluminium Honeycomb (!) core and resin /Glassfibre inner skin.

Cooper
T69

It was said to be incredibly stiff but unfortunatelly they did not have the recources to actually finish it , oif I´m not mistaken..

not much to be found about the car though

[xpensive]

Aha, but still aluminium skin with alu-honeycomb, not xactly a composite that, I find Herd's balsa-Alu far more intriguing?

[timbo]

Aha, but still aluminium skin with alu-honeycomb, not xactly a composite that

I disagree, the sheet and honeycomb perform different structural function joined in a single piece, that's what makes it composite in my book.
All IMHO of course.

[beelsebob]

Aha, but still aluminium skin with alu-honeycomb, not xactly a composite that

I disagree, the sheet and honeycomb perform different structural function joined in a single piece, that's what makes it composite in my book.
All IMHO of course.

Actually, what makes it a composite is the inner resin/glass fibre skin. A composite material is one that's made of more than one material.

[xpensive]

Not to get into semantics here, but when I took composites at university, it was like sandwiching carbonfiber and foamed urethane, the latter to produce the inertia, all in all it was about using properties of different materials?

I actually recall bonding carbonfiber to balsawood.

[timbo]

all in all it was about using properties of different materials?

My view was always that the above is the point of developing of a composite material.
IMO in this context sheet aluminium and aluminium honeycomb may as well be considered different materials .

Interestingly early examples of composite materials were used in aeronautics. Often because of limited supply of aluminium. Notably some of the Germal designs at the end of WWII used some really awkward materials.

[marcush.]

Hexcell does call them composite or sandwich panels .... maybe a composite is characterised by its non homogenius cross section with skins and core section somehow bonded together to enhance/ make best use of material properties.

http://www.hexcel.com/Resources/DataShe ... nology.pdf

it is more a matter of convenience what to use as skin material ....fabrication of double skin 3d shaped monocoque seems to be a bit restricted and leads to boxy designs....

Barnard was shown the way by Brunner who came up with the female mold monocoque (He bonded in the floor section later on ) ,whereas Barnards moncoque was a constructed around a male plug -which was of course removing a lot of design freedom for the tub .

[Tommy Cookers]

Owen Maddock ,John coopers Draftsman /Designer had come up with a revolutionary concept already in 1960s
A formed aluminium outer skin -aluminium Honeycomb (!) core and resin /Glassfibre inner skin.
Cooper T69

Mr Maddock must have been one of the great designers

Frank Costin designed the plywood F2 Protos P16 in 1967
the bulkheads were metal
it was quite successful in F2 and ran in the F1 German GP
Ginetta made their G8, a GRP F3 car from 1964
it had some unbraced metal framwork moulded into the GRP monocoque (later came the G18 F2 - was this conventional ??)
broadly speaking CarbonRP is not stronger than GlassRP, but is much stiffer

most Allied WW2 drop-tanks were British type, made of impregnated paper

[xpensive]

Interestingly enough, modern paperboard is often a sandwich laminate, with outer skins of long-fiber chemical pulp and a mid-section of recycled fiber or mechanical pulp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperboard