Moisture interactions are usually a key consideration for nearly all building materials, but it doesn't seem to be considered here at all. They mentioned space a lot, but there's not a lot of water in space...
What structural component is this meant to replace? It's called a "slab" but I can't see it being used to replace a concrete slab; even if it were stainless, I recall from that 1000-year house discussion that ground contact corrodes metal quite quickly.
If you look at the "last structural material" slide (close to the middle of the page), there's a table showing different industries and potential components it could replace.
As for moisture, this is stainless steel, so it's inherently fairly corrosion-resistant, though I'm sure there might need to be mitigations put in place (e.g. a coat of paint or sealant at the edges) in some applications. I guess the ends might need to be plugged to protect the copper.
We use honeycomb panels in acoustics construction as means for high stiffness (low deflection) with the tradeoff of low mass. Often we laminated a thin layer of plywood to each side to improve the stress skin system. Orchestra shell towers are a common example of this, though we are also doing this for portable seating towers that need to reflect sound too. There are both wood pulp and aluminum versions commonly available in the US.
Is the idea to apply the honeycomb panel concept to metals which allows for the construction of larger and thicker panels than with thinner and weaker materials?
Reading it, I think the innovation is in the construction of the panel, which allows for a brazing process using superheated air. It could work with any materials you would use to make a honeycomb panel.
A traditional honeycomb panel has to be brazed by baking it in an oven, or otherwise applying heat from outside. With the b-core construction, there is space between the tubes for air to flow, so they can shoot superheated air through the interior to braze, which apparently has advantages in speed and uniformity.
Looks like quite interesting solution. Cheap, fast production of strong and durable panels. "Build everlasting civilisation" they say. Im just curious what about thermal insulation properties.
Stainless steel costs quite a bit more than wood; and even if they pull vacuum in those cells (which i dont think they are) I'd bet this isn't as good a thermal insulator as wood.
Looks like an investor fleecing operation.
I helped build a place using "foam core" enameled steel panels in the 1980s; its still there but they had to do another layer of siding over the outside after about a decade, as the paint was beginning to chip and bubble. The "foam core" stuff turned to powder within a few years and settled at the bottom of the panels, meaning what insulation value they had is almost completely gone now.
The marketing speak for those panels had a very strong resemblance to this stuff.
rockwool.com claims a thermal conductivity of 0.033 W/m K. Many stainless steel alloys seem to be around 16 W/m K (and mild steel is quite a bit higher). So, very roughly (and assuming all heat transfer is conductive, etc), if the fraction of the inside that’s steel is well under 0.2%, the overall thermal conductivity through the panel will be comparable to that of rock wool. Otherwise it will be higher. In any case, the thermal conductivity along the sheet (as opposed to through it) will be quite high due to the solid metal face.
One could work out the fill factor from the drawings in the OP.
Going by specifications the steel fill fraction is 0.22% for P and 0.09% for Q, which are meant for Insulated exterior (structural/non-structural) wall. The numbers work out, even for a moderately more conductive steel.
I wonder if they fill the inside of tubes with rock wool.
This can't be a good insulation barrier. It will have a lot of thermal bridging, so might as well not insulate with rockwool inside. Rockwool will mostly help with sound there.
The metal will also have another issue with condensation as the two different sides will have different temperature and moisture and it will condensate.
Uhhh... when that's the sort of thing that's on your website, I immediately discard everything else on it as garbage.