There are three main factors that affect the flatness of a panel: symmetry, choice of materials, and fixturing in production.

Panels made with matching materials bonded to the two sides of the core are extremely stable. Changes in ambient temperature and humidity will not affect the flatness of a balanced panel.

Face sheet materials generally don’t vary much in thickness over the area of a sheet and therefore have little effect on flatness. Cores are more likely to vary, particularly polystyrene foam, polypropylene honeycomb and paper honeycomb. Aluminum honeycomb is manufactured to close tolerances. This is the core to choose if flatness is an issue.

There are also different methods of fixturing panels in the layup process. HONYLITE will choose or devise appropriate fixturing to meet your particular requirements. We urge our customers to consider and communicate the degree to which their application is flatness-critical.

A balanced aluminum honeycomb panel will yield the best flatness. We can provide ± 0.7mm per radial meter flatness tolerances on these panels.

We offer a virtually endless amount of inserts to fit any application that we can customize to suit your panel’s needs. Potted inserts can be mounted flush to the top face of the panel and can be blind, thru holes and threaded standard or metric.

Post lay-up CNC machining, places holes in specific locations to blueprint, for insert installation. We then place inserts and adhesive fill a large internal cavity around each insert. This technique allows us to provide threads for bolts and reinforced thru holes at a high tolerance.