Properties of new polyimide foams and polyimide foam filled honeycomb composites

New polyimide foams and polyimide foam filled honeycombs are currently being developed at NASA, its licensee Sordal Inc. (USA) and Newmet (UK) under the trade name Solrex((R)). These materials are foreseen for Space, Aerospace, Maritime & Medicine applications. in this paper selected properties of these new materials with different densities are described. The investigated key properties are compression strength, thermal conductivity and moisture gain. The dependence of these properties on density, temperature and thermal cycling is discussed. Limits of the used characterisation methods are discussed. Possible applications are defined.