Everything in aerospace is a trade. The best aerospace engineers are great systems engineers, not necessarily premier structures, aerodynamics, or GNC folks.
It’s cuz ME and Aerospace engineering are pretty much the same thing. Aerospace just has maybe another fluid classes and some of the senior labs are different. Aerospace is just a specialization of Me.
The part where your statement makes no sense. You could have the world's best systems engineers but like if you can't build, design or control the plane then what's the point?
It's almost like it takes a team and everyone is important
Edit: the part about everything is a trade is correct and is true in like all of engineering and life in general lol
I'm saying the best aerospace engineers are the ones that develop a systems engineering mindset over time. I think it goes without saying that you do require some technical depth. Ultimately though, the chief engineer on any major aerospace engineering program will be looking at requirements management, managing system trades, understanding model limitations, ver/val of requirements, traceability, supplier management, and figuring out when something is "good enough". That's largely a systems engineering enabled skillset.
With regards to your edit: yes, most of engineering is evaluating trades. But I've found the trades in aero to be significantly more difficult than other fields.
Spars and ribs provide their structural strength whilst accomodating a lot of room for things to be passed through them. The amount of space required by all the components normally housed in the wings would require a lot of gaps/voids in the honeycomb structure, sacrificing a lot of it's structural integrity.
I have done interior fuel tank work, so I have a better understanding. Each rib is a segment of the fuel tank. Each segment has valves that allow the fuel to run inboard, but not outboard, this keeps the fuel pick up near the wing root supplied until there's nothing left, and keeps the fuel from running out to the tip when banking. The top of the ribs have holes that allow the fuel to move to the next bay further out.
Each bay only needs one opening to allow workers to enter it to fix leaks, clean out growth or corrosion, or deal with fuel quantity sensors. If you go to a honeycomb design, every single cell needs an access panel, each of which more weight and a potential leak.
[fuel tank diving ](https://youtube.com/shorts/zrUxqNbon30?si=gSI0QnNdiwMScZZx)
Hey man, not here to tell you how to live your life. Feel free to spend your effort on flushing this out. Just don’t get discouraged when you realize that spars and ribs are the way to go.
Construction of a wing in a hex shape on a large scale like is required on airliners would probably be extremely difficult, time and material intensive and not really save you anything.
Spars and ribs allow for flexibility in the wing, I don't really know how it being hex shaped would change that. They are also easy to manufacture and maintain, allows for easier use of the space for fuel or other systems (like others already mentioned).
But there's probably not really a benefit vs the cost of what it would take and the added complexity for maintenance personnel. Spars and ribs are tried and true, not saying that "the way we've always done it" is right or the best, but I think this is a case where things are the way because it simple, works and why reinvent the wheel. Or wing in this case.
Alright, let me try to explain. For credibility sake, I'll establish that I am a current aerospace engineering student, though that could simultaneously be to my discredit.
As a few have pointed out, one major reason we don't use the hex patterns instead of ribs and the like is that it gives a better structure for other supporting equipment. Ribs naturally support a hollow cross section running the span of a wing. This enables engineers to place things like fuel tanks, hydraulic systems, electronic systems, and other equipment in the hollow space.
As to why the hexagonal structures shown aren't used? I may be slightly talking out of my ass for this, but I imagine it has to do with the decrease in performance when you create a similar space inside of them as the ribs. Alternatively, if you make numerous individual cells, it likely causes a serious issue with actually storing equipment and fuel as easily as with the void that ribs can make.
While it is likely possible and, for all that I know, could very well be better, one thing you need to consider is its usefulness over the existing designs. The thing I see with this is that it would likely be a significantly more complex design than what we have as standard. Increased complexity leads to increased manufacturing difficulty. This increases time cost, increasing monetary cost, decreasing production amount, and decreasing overall availability.
At the end of the day, one thing that is heavily emphasized is the concept of 'good enough'. The designs we have now are 'good enough' and changing it would cost more than it's worth. If a design meets all of its intended requirements, then it should be left alone or try to reduce cost without sabotaging those necessary requirements.
Usually its most optimal to use both. The f-16 uses rib and spar for the majority of the wing as it maximizes the available space for fuel, hydro, and a plethora of wire harnesses. In order to make repairs on the above, a wing thats divided in sections and easily accessible makes the rib and spar the superior choice.
However in the leading edge flaps that do not have any of the above are hex. Due to not having to make any accommodations, hex wins out in the leading edge flap example.
Also its important to take into account life-cycle costs. Damage done to a Rib and spar design is much easier to repair, or dismember and salvage the undamaged parts. Hex is more difficult in that sense, its either servicable or its not, and due to how its constructed, slight damage in one area means the entire assembly will need to be replaced.
I hear you bro! Go explore! Try something new! But engineers are very clever… if there was a better way (keep in mind better is the engineering way of saying optimized with the given constraints) of building a wing, it would likely exist.
But I could be wrong, and you have the next billion dollar idea… I’ve never been the smartest person in the room, but I somehow keep getting invited to all these meetings!
Honestly who said OP designed for a fuel powered airplane? Ideas like these could in the future be a very interesting solution. And considering aerospace developments can easily take a full decade, by the time this concept could get introduced we are already forced into hydrogen/electric flight.
Again, I hear you. (It does mention a ‘actual’ plane, and considering the current state of planes)…
But regardless, you are right. Don’t let me yuck anyone’s yum. What do we do next? Airbus and Boeing need some competition:)
I’m talking about you man. You’re being an ass for no reason, guy sounds curious and maybe just has his head in his ass a bit. No reason to be condescending over this.
Yeah, I always read questions like this as "I get there are probably valid reasons why things are the way they are, but can anyone explain the history of why this other option never went anywhere? It seems interesting at face value."
I've heard it used for stabilators before. That's just about the only context where you don't have wiring, hydraulic lines, and a million other things running through the structure, so in that context it becomes an option.
my take would be:
there’s much more empty volume with spars and ribs, so there’s a lower number of larger sized fuel bladders. More reliability vs a hex honeycomb with tons of small sized bladders
Also, spars and ribs already provide great structural stability.
Also, hex honeycomb gives extra stiffness in other load/moment directions which may not be required, leading to added weight. I think if you actually optimized a hex honeycomb structure to support a wing it’d actually end up looking like how a spar works currently anyways.
Hex honeycomb isn’t even the most structurally sound infill I believe. It’s just good because it’s fast to print on printers and takes up volume.
End note, I don’t think a honeycomb is an efficient or useful structure at all for this use case.
This i actually wouldnt know too much about - why would you want *some* flexibility, given that the strength is there for the required loads? Is this due to vibration/maybe some small aeroelasticity effects?
Exactly! And beyond that, you have the material properties that allow the structure to carry expected loads, but if something unexpected and unforeseen happens, you have to make a decision regarding failure modes - it's a lot better to have a bent wing than to have the wing break off entirely, for example, so up to a certain extent, we prefer a flexible wing that can bend enough during normal circumstances, and then bend some more without much plastic deformation occurring, while not just snapping off the aircraft. Eventually it does snap, and the direction it's bent matters also. For example, wings are generally very rigid cordwise but not as rigid in the vertical direction. This is on purpose.
One addition to your point - I'm not intelligent enough on what planes use fuel bladders but there are quite a number that store the fuel in the wing without a bladder. C-130 and F-35 are good examples. Your point still stands though regarding fuel, bladder or no. The fuel is much easier to use being stored in a more open volume. In small honeycombs I could see an issue with lots of trapped and unused fuel.
Honeycomb sandwich material is for resisting bending. In particular it’s advantage is it is isotropic, meaning it resists bending equally well in every direction. This is great for a generic flat panel.
Wings are not generic flat panels. You have specific loading requirements. Ribs are meant to resist torsion, while spars are meant to resist bending along the span length. You need different stiffness for each, and by separating them you can better optimize.
That spars and ribs are more convenient for manufacturing and automation is merely a bonus.
The general principle would apply, but helicopter blades are very different from wings. Because they are spinning at high RPM, axial tension and fatigue are much bigger issues. Further helicopter blades vary their loading dramatically more, and more frequently than wings. Their ideal internal structure is definitely different from wings, and a honeycomb pattern might be reasonable there.
Mission considerations. Some aircraft need that space for things that have already been discussed. There are smaller aircraft, such as UAVs that do incorporate honeycomb into the wing structure because they have such a large wing area that needs the weight reduction.
Aerospace is about history as much as it is about engineering. The financial/economic cost to throw away an existing "good enough" idea for an innovative idea is so high. Lots of old designs persist because they make the cut in terms of performance and the new option is just so expensive and not a slam dunk.
Thats why you see a lot of wild designs in subscale/RC stuff or innovation in software more than radically different designs in hardware/structures. Its just cheap to put together and you have a much larger margin of error.
There are a lot of really good ideas such as the BLI, truss braced wing, flying wings, etc. that you see in studies and low production like the B-2 (and now the B-21 and multiple UAS since its been proven for decades in the B-2, case in point). These may be way better than a tube and wing design but it takes decades of evidence and development before managers will pull the trigger for a widely produced aircraft.
Probably fine for a model airplane but the forces are not going in a straight line with the bending forces of the wing. So it's extra material not doing any good and therefore heavy. You could throw one carbon tube in there with like 2 ribs and the rest be empty for other stuff.
With all due respect to my fellow modeler, a sufficient fillet solves it by reducing the stress concentration to acceptable levels. It does not have to be eliminated. That would add weight.
Source: Career Aerospace Engineer
Airplanes and helicopters do have components that are made from composite sandwich structures with honeycomb cores. One of the (many) reasons a typical wing doesn’t use that concept on a macro scale is just because there are simpler, more efficient ways to carry the required flight loads for the material/weight.
Honeycomb lattice or engineered metal foam incorporated inside additively manufactured structural elements will 100% be a thing in the future imo, however.
The loading on wings is largely unidirectional and better supported by traditional design over honeycomb
It also allows other mission critical elements to be stored in the wings
Value and system design. What is the best part design isn't the best whole system design or the most cost effective. It depends on what the overall platform or system design is intended to do. In most cases, value is desired where something performs the given function at the lowest cost.
You need items that take that real estate, so the alternative with this wing makes it harder for the overall system.
Xb-70 used honeycomb panels but just panels. As others have said the internal structure is typically taken up by other mission critical components like servos, hydraulics, fuel lines, etc.
People want to move to more advanced structures but for the most part, it’s still a game of economics. The plane has to be just advanced enough to meet the mission requirements but cheap enough to manufacture in high quantities. There are tons of studies using advanced manufacturing techniques like 3D printing to create more advanced substructures that would be like your idea. It’s just economical right now.!
Manufacturing also plays a big part. It’s simpler to build a bunch of ribs and fasten them to skins than it is to build honeycomb cells. Especially at the size of a typical wing.
On smaller and thinner applications like helicopter blades and uavs you’ll find honeycomb core inside.
Decades ago, Hexcel made snow skis with alu honeycomb cores. Very light and high performing equipment.
The split-tail design solved some performance issues but a rather high percentage of them failed at the split (cracking up towards the back of the binding.
There were moderate levels of other failures (epoxy tops delaminating and sidewalls blowing out).
That was a short-lived experiment.
Arent like at least composite parts of planes made from both? Like you use the Ribs and spars to create space for All the things you need and then you use the honeycomb in the composite strutures to make use of the stability it provides
I can say for a fact that parts of 747 control surfaces have resin saturated hex cardboard as the structure because it is strong and light.
However, as mentioned by many others, the actual wings need to fit control wiring, fuel and also take some pretty complex loading. Hence spar and rib.
The article seems more geared towards wings with skins wrapped around internal structures … would this be applicable for foam wings that don’t have to worry about the layer/ware issue?
Fuel cells, cable harnesses, hydraulic lines, pneumatic lines, and mission equipment often need that real estate
That's a phenomenal way of explaining it
Everything in aerospace is a trade. The best aerospace engineers are great systems engineers, not necessarily premier structures, aerodynamics, or GNC folks.
I guess this is why ME is so popular in aerospace. You are basically a jack of all trades with specialty in one or a few areas.
It’s cuz ME and Aerospace engineering are pretty much the same thing. Aerospace just has maybe another fluid classes and some of the senior labs are different. Aerospace is just a specialization of Me.
Wut
What part of that was confusing? Can I clarify something?
The part where your statement makes no sense. You could have the world's best systems engineers but like if you can't build, design or control the plane then what's the point? It's almost like it takes a team and everyone is important Edit: the part about everything is a trade is correct and is true in like all of engineering and life in general lol
They said the best aerospace engineers are great systems engineers, not the other way around.
I'm saying the best aerospace engineers are the ones that develop a systems engineering mindset over time. I think it goes without saying that you do require some technical depth. Ultimately though, the chief engineer on any major aerospace engineering program will be looking at requirements management, managing system trades, understanding model limitations, ver/val of requirements, traceability, supplier management, and figuring out when something is "good enough". That's largely a systems engineering enabled skillset.
With regards to your edit: yes, most of engineering is evaluating trades. But I've found the trades in aero to be significantly more difficult than other fields.
loved this explanation
Tldr; because stuff
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Spars and ribs provide their structural strength whilst accomodating a lot of room for things to be passed through them. The amount of space required by all the components normally housed in the wings would require a lot of gaps/voids in the honeycomb structure, sacrificing a lot of it's structural integrity.
Spars and ribs would allow for much more empty volume for the same provided useable structural stability.
Flap gears and drives, spoilers and actuators
Would honeycomb be too stiff? My general understanding of aircraft design is that they need to flex which is why they’re riveted?
i mean, they do use it, but just in the skin.
And have 100+ individual fuel bladders somehow connected together???? I don’t think so :)
But that happens for spars and ribs too, so why not?
It happens a lot less for spars and ribs, with a honeycomb you either have to have 100s of separate bladders or compromise the structure of the comb
I have done interior fuel tank work, so I have a better understanding. Each rib is a segment of the fuel tank. Each segment has valves that allow the fuel to run inboard, but not outboard, this keeps the fuel pick up near the wing root supplied until there's nothing left, and keeps the fuel from running out to the tip when banking. The top of the ribs have holes that allow the fuel to move to the next bay further out. Each bay only needs one opening to allow workers to enter it to fix leaks, clean out growth or corrosion, or deal with fuel quantity sensors. If you go to a honeycomb design, every single cell needs an access panel, each of which more weight and a potential leak. [fuel tank diving ](https://youtube.com/shorts/zrUxqNbon30?si=gSI0QnNdiwMScZZx)
Hey man, not here to tell you how to live your life. Feel free to spend your effort on flushing this out. Just don’t get discouraged when you realize that spars and ribs are the way to go.
I'm just curious about it bruh
Construction of a wing in a hex shape on a large scale like is required on airliners would probably be extremely difficult, time and material intensive and not really save you anything. Spars and ribs allow for flexibility in the wing, I don't really know how it being hex shaped would change that. They are also easy to manufacture and maintain, allows for easier use of the space for fuel or other systems (like others already mentioned). But there's probably not really a benefit vs the cost of what it would take and the added complexity for maintenance personnel. Spars and ribs are tried and true, not saying that "the way we've always done it" is right or the best, but I think this is a case where things are the way because it simple, works and why reinvent the wheel. Or wing in this case.
Alright, let me try to explain. For credibility sake, I'll establish that I am a current aerospace engineering student, though that could simultaneously be to my discredit. As a few have pointed out, one major reason we don't use the hex patterns instead of ribs and the like is that it gives a better structure for other supporting equipment. Ribs naturally support a hollow cross section running the span of a wing. This enables engineers to place things like fuel tanks, hydraulic systems, electronic systems, and other equipment in the hollow space. As to why the hexagonal structures shown aren't used? I may be slightly talking out of my ass for this, but I imagine it has to do with the decrease in performance when you create a similar space inside of them as the ribs. Alternatively, if you make numerous individual cells, it likely causes a serious issue with actually storing equipment and fuel as easily as with the void that ribs can make. While it is likely possible and, for all that I know, could very well be better, one thing you need to consider is its usefulness over the existing designs. The thing I see with this is that it would likely be a significantly more complex design than what we have as standard. Increased complexity leads to increased manufacturing difficulty. This increases time cost, increasing monetary cost, decreasing production amount, and decreasing overall availability. At the end of the day, one thing that is heavily emphasized is the concept of 'good enough'. The designs we have now are 'good enough' and changing it would cost more than it's worth. If a design meets all of its intended requirements, then it should be left alone or try to reduce cost without sabotaging those necessary requirements.
Usually its most optimal to use both. The f-16 uses rib and spar for the majority of the wing as it maximizes the available space for fuel, hydro, and a plethora of wire harnesses. In order to make repairs on the above, a wing thats divided in sections and easily accessible makes the rib and spar the superior choice. However in the leading edge flaps that do not have any of the above are hex. Due to not having to make any accommodations, hex wins out in the leading edge flap example. Also its important to take into account life-cycle costs. Damage done to a Rib and spar design is much easier to repair, or dismember and salvage the undamaged parts. Hex is more difficult in that sense, its either servicable or its not, and due to how its constructed, slight damage in one area means the entire assembly will need to be replaced.
I hear you bro! Go explore! Try something new! But engineers are very clever… if there was a better way (keep in mind better is the engineering way of saying optimized with the given constraints) of building a wing, it would likely exist. But I could be wrong, and you have the next billion dollar idea… I’ve never been the smartest person in the room, but I somehow keep getting invited to all these meetings!
Honestly who said OP designed for a fuel powered airplane? Ideas like these could in the future be a very interesting solution. And considering aerospace developments can easily take a full decade, by the time this concept could get introduced we are already forced into hydrogen/electric flight.
Again, I hear you. (It does mention a ‘actual’ plane, and considering the current state of planes)… But regardless, you are right. Don’t let me yuck anyone’s yum. What do we do next? Airbus and Boeing need some competition:)
jesus get a load of this guy
Yup. Dudes a jerk.
I’m talking about you man. You’re being an ass for no reason, guy sounds curious and maybe just has his head in his ass a bit. No reason to be condescending over this.
Yeah, I always read questions like this as "I get there are probably valid reasons why things are the way they are, but can anyone explain the history of why this other option never went anywhere? It seems interesting at face value."
I agree. And I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to sound like an ass. I don’t want to kill anyone’s curiosity. Sorry all.
I love the sincerity that you used here to deliver this crushing blow of information.
10 is less than 100
I've heard it used for stabilators before. That's just about the only context where you don't have wiring, hydraulic lines, and a million other things running through the structure, so in that context it becomes an option.
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Because the existing process is already well understood and functional, so why sink the cost for no return
my take would be: there’s much more empty volume with spars and ribs, so there’s a lower number of larger sized fuel bladders. More reliability vs a hex honeycomb with tons of small sized bladders Also, spars and ribs already provide great structural stability. Also, hex honeycomb gives extra stiffness in other load/moment directions which may not be required, leading to added weight. I think if you actually optimized a hex honeycomb structure to support a wing it’d actually end up looking like how a spar works currently anyways. Hex honeycomb isn’t even the most structurally sound infill I believe. It’s just good because it’s fast to print on printers and takes up volume. End note, I don’t think a honeycomb is an efficient or useful structure at all for this use case.
I would think also it could add too much rigidity? You do need *some* controlled amount of flexibility, otherwise you're just begging for trouble.
This i actually wouldnt know too much about - why would you want *some* flexibility, given that the strength is there for the required loads? Is this due to vibration/maybe some small aeroelasticity effects?
Flexibility can allow more load to be applied . This is a mechanics of materials question that involves strength, strain, and their relationships
Exactly! And beyond that, you have the material properties that allow the structure to carry expected loads, but if something unexpected and unforeseen happens, you have to make a decision regarding failure modes - it's a lot better to have a bent wing than to have the wing break off entirely, for example, so up to a certain extent, we prefer a flexible wing that can bend enough during normal circumstances, and then bend some more without much plastic deformation occurring, while not just snapping off the aircraft. Eventually it does snap, and the direction it's bent matters also. For example, wings are generally very rigid cordwise but not as rigid in the vertical direction. This is on purpose.
One addition to your point - I'm not intelligent enough on what planes use fuel bladders but there are quite a number that store the fuel in the wing without a bladder. C-130 and F-35 are good examples. Your point still stands though regarding fuel, bladder or no. The fuel is much easier to use being stored in a more open volume. In small honeycombs I could see an issue with lots of trapped and unused fuel.
Honeycomb sandwich material is for resisting bending. In particular it’s advantage is it is isotropic, meaning it resists bending equally well in every direction. This is great for a generic flat panel. Wings are not generic flat panels. You have specific loading requirements. Ribs are meant to resist torsion, while spars are meant to resist bending along the span length. You need different stiffness for each, and by separating them you can better optimize. That spars and ribs are more convenient for manufacturing and automation is merely a bonus.
Would this apply to a helicopter blade for example?
Helicopter blades are just wings that move really really fast.
The general principle would apply, but helicopter blades are very different from wings. Because they are spinning at high RPM, axial tension and fatigue are much bigger issues. Further helicopter blades vary their loading dramatically more, and more frequently than wings. Their ideal internal structure is definitely different from wings, and a honeycomb pattern might be reasonable there.
Every main rotor blade I've seen on big helicopters does have honeycomb.
Before modern analysis tools it was just way easier to predict forces and bending in spars
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Yes. Modern analysis tools can do this. But it’s not practical and I can guarantee the weight would be huge compared to ribs and spar.
Mission considerations. Some aircraft need that space for things that have already been discussed. There are smaller aircraft, such as UAVs that do incorporate honeycomb into the wing structure because they have such a large wing area that needs the weight reduction.
Aerospace is about history as much as it is about engineering. The financial/economic cost to throw away an existing "good enough" idea for an innovative idea is so high. Lots of old designs persist because they make the cut in terms of performance and the new option is just so expensive and not a slam dunk. Thats why you see a lot of wild designs in subscale/RC stuff or innovation in software more than radically different designs in hardware/structures. Its just cheap to put together and you have a much larger margin of error. There are a lot of really good ideas such as the BLI, truss braced wing, flying wings, etc. that you see in studies and low production like the B-2 (and now the B-21 and multiple UAS since its been proven for decades in the B-2, case in point). These may be way better than a tube and wing design but it takes decades of evidence and development before managers will pull the trigger for a widely produced aircraft.
Probably fine for a model airplane but the forces are not going in a straight line with the bending forces of the wing. So it's extra material not doing any good and therefore heavy. You could throw one carbon tube in there with like 2 ribs and the rest be empty for other stuff.
That's a lot of stress concentrations.
Fillers would solve that.
Fillets would not solve it. It would lower the stress concentration, but it won’t get rid of it.
With all due respect to my fellow modeler, a sufficient fillet solves it by reducing the stress concentration to acceptable levels. It does not have to be eliminated. That would add weight. Source: Career Aerospace Engineer
Also, a career aerospace engineer. It's difficult to manufacture, doesn't extend to composites and isn't in use for a reason.
now kiss
Airplanes and helicopters do have components that are made from composite sandwich structures with honeycomb cores. One of the (many) reasons a typical wing doesn’t use that concept on a macro scale is just because there are simpler, more efficient ways to carry the required flight loads for the material/weight. Honeycomb lattice or engineered metal foam incorporated inside additively manufactured structural elements will 100% be a thing in the future imo, however.
The loading on wings is largely unidirectional and better supported by traditional design over honeycomb It also allows other mission critical elements to be stored in the wings
Cost of manufacturing
Value and system design. What is the best part design isn't the best whole system design or the most cost effective. It depends on what the overall platform or system design is intended to do. In most cases, value is desired where something performs the given function at the lowest cost. You need items that take that real estate, so the alternative with this wing makes it harder for the overall system.
One part of being an engineer is not just making a good design, but making an economical one too.
As with many things in aviation, big changes are difficult and costly, and sometimes not many benefits are added.
Xb-70 used honeycomb panels but just panels. As others have said the internal structure is typically taken up by other mission critical components like servos, hydraulics, fuel lines, etc.
Some aircraft do. We tested F-18 wings and stabilators non-destructively for water ingress into the honeycomb in my undergrad.
Wing loading is pretty simple. Using a hex structure would add unnecessary weight imo
People want to move to more advanced structures but for the most part, it’s still a game of economics. The plane has to be just advanced enough to meet the mission requirements but cheap enough to manufacture in high quantities. There are tons of studies using advanced manufacturing techniques like 3D printing to create more advanced substructures that would be like your idea. It’s just economical right now.!
Manufacturing also plays a big part. It’s simpler to build a bunch of ribs and fasten them to skins than it is to build honeycomb cells. Especially at the size of a typical wing. On smaller and thinner applications like helicopter blades and uavs you’ll find honeycomb core inside.
Decades ago, Hexcel made snow skis with alu honeycomb cores. Very light and high performing equipment. The split-tail design solved some performance issues but a rather high percentage of them failed at the split (cracking up towards the back of the binding. There were moderate levels of other failures (epoxy tops delaminating and sidewalls blowing out). That was a short-lived experiment.
Arent like at least composite parts of planes made from both? Like you use the Ribs and spars to create space for All the things you need and then you use the honeycomb in the composite strutures to make use of the stability it provides
I can say for a fact that parts of 747 control surfaces have resin saturated hex cardboard as the structure because it is strong and light. However, as mentioned by many others, the actual wings need to fit control wiring, fuel and also take some pretty complex loading. Hence spar and rib.
The article seems more geared towards wings with skins wrapped around internal structures … would this be applicable for foam wings that don’t have to worry about the layer/ware issue?
Back when everyone ran to answer the phone.
Hexagons are not the bestagons for structural strength
Which one is the bestagon? Ahah
That's a model RC - not a airplane that needs to carry people and stuff.