Industry
Aerospace
Ablative shields, thermal protection and lightweight composites for launch and flight structures.
Aerospace engineers ask cork to do things synthetic materials struggle with: form a protective char under direct flame, stay dimensionally stable through extreme thermal cycles, and do it at a fraction of the weight. Our coarse agglomerates and calibrated powders feed launch-vehicle ablative shields and airframe composite programmes.
The behaviour that makes cork valuable to aerospace is the same one that makes it valuable to a wine bottle: sealed suberin-walled cells that neither melt nor gas off. In flight structures that translates to an ablative layer that chars rather than fails, a vibration-damping laminate that stays stable across thermal cycles, and a sandwich core that shaves mass without shaving performance.
We supply aerospace programmes with agglomerates calibrated to the customer's layup and pressing envelope, with the documentation that certification programmes require.
Applications
Where cork enters the line.
Ablative thermal shields
Pure cork agglomerates whose char layer protects the substrate under re-entry and rocket-motor conditions.
Vibration damping laminates
Cork-composite laminates absorbing structural and acoustic vibration in flight structures.
Lightweight cores
Low-density agglomerates as sandwich cores for secondary aerospace structures.
Typical specifications
Material envelope.
- Density (ablative)
- 180 – 260 kg/m³
- Char behaviour
- Forms insulating char; no melt or drip
- Operating range
- Cryogenic to > 400 °C peak surface
- Traceability
- Full batch and origin certification
Products specified for this sector