S042012 Fabrication of a C/SiC composite with dispersed SiC slurry infiltration method

Abstract

The polymer impregnation and pyrolysis (PIP) method, and melt infiltration with silicon (Si-MI) method are conventional processing routes of Carbon-fiber-reinforced SiC matrix (C/SiC) composites. In PIP method, due to the low volume yield of pre-ceramic polymers after pyrolysis, PIP should be repeatedly processed to obtain high-density C/SiC composites. This leads to long manufacturing time and high processing cost. For the purpose of reducing the processing cost, a slurry infiltration process was studied. In this process, the space between fibers in a 2D carbon fiber preform was impregnated with SiC powder slurry by a pressure or vacuum assisted infiltration before the PIP process, and the bulk density of the powder filled preform achieved 1.3 g/cm^3. Then, the powder filled preform was further densified by the PIP method or the melt infiltration (MI) method. Through these experiments, SiC powder infiltration behavior during a pressure and vacuum assisted slurry infiltration process was discussed, and basic mechanical properties of C/SiC composites fabricated by these processes were evaluated.