Airpad Rubber Tooling
Airpad is an uncured non-silicone rubber that can be made into pressure caul sheets and flexible mandrels. The Airpad pressure intensifier provides uniform pressure distribution during autoclave processing. This creates toolside part quality on the vacuum bag side of the part. Airpad will take high temperature similar to silicone rubbers but will not cause silicone contamination. Airpad is dimensionally stable when reinforced with Toolmaster® Prepreg TMGP 4100 or TMFP 3100. Toolmaster® TMGP 4100 and TMFP 3100 have the same flow and cure temperature as Airpad making a perfect bond. Toolmaster® is a hot melt system that does not give off volatiles from solvents that could also cause delamination. Airpad must be reinforced with Toolmaster® prepreg to stay dimensionally stable. Never reinforce the male radius if stretch is needed.
Benefits Include:
- Airpad is an uncured non-silicone rubber that can be made into pressure caul sheets and flexible mandrels.
- Provides uniform pressure distribution during autoclave processing, creating a toolside part quality on the vacuum bag side of the part.
- Takes high temperature similar to silicone rubbers but will not cause silicone contamination.
- Can be used to correct a number of component faults created as a result of poor consolidations and pressure application such as: thickness control, corner consolidation, surface wrinkling, voids & porosity, and distortion due to uneven laminate.
- Can be molded to shape to avoid the problems associated with secondary metallic tooling, such as part mark-off and complex shape requirements.
- Can be successfully reinforced with Airtech Tooling pre-pregs. This reinforcement can evenly distribute pressure over planar surfaces or male corners, its flexibility can allow removal of negative draft angle part shape, and conformance to allow ply consolidation in sharp female corners.
