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A Numerical Study of Densification Behavior of Silicon Carbide Matrix Composites in Isothermal Chemical Vapor Infiltration

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Abstract

We studied the characteristics of two-scale pore structure of preform in the deposition process and the mass transfer of reactant gas in dual-scale pores, and observed the physiochemical phenomenon associated with the reaction. Thereby, we established mathematical models on two scales, respectively, preform and reactor. These models were used for the numerical simulation of the process of ceramic matrix composites densified by isothermal chemical vapor infiltration (ICVI). The models were used to carry out a systematic study on the influence of process conditions and the preform structure on the densification behaviors. The most important findings of our study are that the processing time could be reduced by about 50% without compromising the quality of the material, if the processing temperature is 950–1 000 °C for the first 70 hours and then raised to 1 100 °C.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51472092). We also thank Northwestern Polytechnical University High Performance Computing Center for the allocation of computing time on their machines.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Kang Guan  (关康) & Jianqing Wu

  2. Science and Technology on Thermostructural Composite Materials Laboratory, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

    Laifei Cheng

Authors
  1. Kang Guan  (关康)
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  2. Jianqing Wu
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  3. Laifei Cheng
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Correspondence to Kang Guan  (关康).

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Funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51472092)

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Guan, K., Wu, J. & Cheng, L. A Numerical Study of Densification Behavior of Silicon Carbide Matrix Composites in Isothermal Chemical Vapor Infiltration. J. Wuhan Univ. Technol.-Mat. Sci. Edit. 33, 1365–1371 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11595-018-1976-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11595-018-1976-8

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