Fabrication of SiC fiber reinforced SiC composite by chemical vapor infiltration for excellent mechanical properties

Igawa, Naoki   ; Taguchi, Tomitsugu; Nozawa, Takashi*; Snead, L. L.*; Hinoki, Tatsuya*; McLaughlin, J. C.*; Kato, Yutai*; Jitsukawa, Shiro; Koyama, Akira*

Silicon carbide is an important engineering ceramic because of its high strength and stability at high temperature and low induced radioactivity after neutron irradiation. Though monolithic SiC is brittle and low toughness, SiC fiber reinforced SiC matrix composites significantly improve these properties and therefore are attractive candidate materials for fusion reactor structural applications. Recently, stoichiometric SiC fibers with superior mechanical properties have been produced. We carried out the optimization of interface and composite fabrication using the chemical vapor infiltration, which is the one of the best techniques to fabricate the SiC composite. The composite with higher density and homogeneous matrix was obtained by the optimization of materials and carrier gas flow rate. The porosity was decreased with increasing the fiber volume fraction. We adopted the carbon or carbon/SiC interface between fiber and matrix and we found that the dependence of interface thickness on the tensile properties was small in the interface thickness from 50 to 300 nm.