Preparation and mechanical characteristics of fine-woven cloth and punctured felt preform Cf/C-SiC-ZrC composite

A 3D architecture carbon fiber preform, specifically fine-woven cloth and punctured felt preform, is used to manufacture a novel advanced C-f/C-SiC-ZrC composite. The composite matrix is produced by chemical vapor infiltration (CVI) plus precursor infiltration and pyrolysis (PIP) process and finalized by using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of SiC coating to make the final density of the material reach 1.95 g/cm(3). The organic precursors of SiC and ZrC have a weight ratio of 4:1 in a xylene solute. The composite mechanical properties, such as tensile, compression, bending, shear, and Z-direction load bearing, are introduced under analysis to find possible applications for the composite. What is more, scanning electron microscope (SEM) images are employed to illustrate the failure behavior of the ceramic composite. The results showed that the punctured filament tows will be beneficial, not only for the composite to withstand compression force up to 308.6 MPa and shear strength to 18.14 MPa but also for the alternatively stacked weave piles and short fiber layers to support the punctured bundles, as well as to hold the composite structure under mechanical forces from different orientations, which is believed to reinforce the ceramic matrix for some high pressure and severe ablation applications.