[en] In an effort to produce a coherent picture of foil lifetimes, a review is given of results of various authors on the use of carbon foil beam strippers for heavy ion facilities. Foil heating in the tandem terminal during heavy ion bombardment, combined with oscillation of the foil, should produce acceptable foil lifetimes and improve the beam quality by reduction of the foil thickening effect and the accompanying inhomogeneity. The installation and operation of such a system does not present insurmountable problems