Products
4a manufacturing develops and manufactures three material product families. Each has its own performance profile, target applications, and production infrastructure. All three are developed and manufactured in Traboch, Austria.
MILLIFOAM®
Precision-cut thin hard foam sheets
Thin hard foam sheets produced from commercial polymer blocks using a proprietary cutting process. No grinding step, no dust, tight dimensional tolerances. The process yields flat, clean-surfaced sheets in thicknesses starting at 0.12 mm, a range that conventional slitting and grinding cannot reach consistently.
MILLIFOAM® is used as the core layer in CIMERA® microsandwich composites, and supplied directly to customers who integrate it into their own lamination or composite processes.
- Thickness range: 0.12 mm to 7.00 mm
- Max. sheet size: 2,500 × 650 mm; roll stock available
- Polymer grades: PMI, PET, PVC, PESU, PPSU and others
- Tolerances: ±5–10% depending on grade and thickness
CIMERA®
Microsandwich composites for weight-critical components
CIMERA® combines a MILLIFOAM® foam core with thin skin layers, metal, polymer, or fiber, bonded with adhesive film. The five-layer sandwich construction separates the load-bearing surfaces, converting bending stress into tension and compression at the outer faces. The result is a higher bending stiffness-to-weight ratio than any monolithic material at equivalent thickness.
CIMERA® is produced in three configurations depending on application:
- CIMERA® metal - aluminum or steel skins; used in acoustic membranes and structural enclosures
- CIMERA® plastic - polymer skins; used where non-magnetic, corrosion-resistant construction is required
- CIMERA® fiber - carbon, glass Skins - used in structural lightweight applications
- Total thickness from 0.12 mm
- Weight reduction vs. aluminum: up to 76%
- Weight reduction vs. monolithic CFRP/GFRP: up to 60%
- Acoustic grades in serial production since 2005
CIMERA® Radome
Sandwich radome structures for mmWave applications
CIMERA® Radome structures are sandwich panels engineered for defined electromagnetic transmission performance. Layer composition and thickness are calculated per application to minimize transmission loss and maintain performance across a specified incidence angle range and frequency band.
4a manufacturing handles the full development and production cycle in-house: requirements analysis, electromagnetic simulation, mechanical design, prototype production, testing, and serial manufacturing. Customers receive a tested radome solution, not just a material.
- Optimized for mmWave frequency bands including automotive radar (77 GHz) and 5G
- Low-loss core materials
- Incidence angle performance specified per application
- Full in-house capability: simulation through serial production