There are a wide variety of tooling options available within our industry. Traditionally composite structures have been fabricated over the years using metal or composite tooling systems. However, a number of new products and materials have come along recently. The authors thought it might be worthwhile to provide our SAMPE membership with a table of typical properties summarizing both the traditional and newer materials. In general, it must be remembered that many tooling materials, particularly those made from composites, have a range of design properties. This is primarily because composite structural laminates (whether they be tools themselves or end-use structures) can vary in fiber content, fiber orientation and lamination sequence. We hope that you will find this table useful in your work.

Notes:
(1) 2Phase Technologies Reconfigurable Tooling System (RTS™) material
(2) na = not available
(3) General Plastics FR-4500 Tooling Board (polyurethane)
(4) Touchstone Research Laboratory CFOAM®
(5) Advanced Ceramics Research, Inc. Aquapore® and Aquacore® materials
(6) Typical properties might demonstrate a wide range based upon mix ratios, fiber orientation, lamination sequence, fiber volume, etc.