Our Story

In the late 1960s, the Department of Defense was interested in finding an alternative to hexagonal honeycomb that could be used in helicopter blades that would improve the probability of survival of the blade following a ballistic event. Department of Defense engineer Harry Fiege hypothesized that a tetrahedral-based honeycomb structure would improve the capacity of the honeycomb core to absorb ballistic shocks and improve the likelihood of the helicopter surviving a ballistic event. His early patents outline a variety of manufacturing approaches to produce the tetrahedral-octahedral truss that he surmised would offer superior performance. Due to cost and other considerations, none of these approaches were ever adopted, at least to the best of our knowledge.

Over the years, a number of engineers sought ways to produce the truss, or a close approximation, in a cost effective manner. While some interesting approaches have been tried, none has been able to successfully compete with traditional honeycomb at scale.

Rigidcore was born of the idea that a direct, low cost, scalable approach to manufacturing a tetrahedral-octahedral truss with semi-isotropic characteristics was possible. Advances in additive manufacturing are making low volume 3D printing of the truss and its derivatives a certainty. Our contribution to the technology is a direct method of molding the truss (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2019/0194943A), adding an approach to the prior art which could be low cost and manufactured in volume.

If you have an interest in working with us to develop an application that could benefit from a semi-isotropic honeycomb core material, contact Jack Bingham, Vice President of Sales at jbingham@rcgrp.net.