Morphology and anti-ablation properties of PIP Cf/C–SiC composites with different CVI carbon content under 4.2 MW/m2 heat flux oxy-acetylene test

Abstract In this work, the needled carbon fiber preforms were used to make seven groups of carbon/carbon composite billets with different matrix carbon contents by controlling the processing time of chemical vapor infiltration (CVI). Cf/C–SiC composites were prepared by infiltration of SiC into these C/C composites billets using polycarbosilane (PCS) through precursor infiltration and pyrolysis (PIP). After oxy-acetylene torch testing (heat flux of 4.2 MW/m2) for 200s, 300s and 400s, respectively, it revealed that the anti-ablation properties of the Cf/C–SiC composite samples were enhanced by a higher content of SiC matrix. Additionally, specimens bearing longer duration tests showed a trend of lower average ablation rates. The lowest linear ablation rate is 0.008 mm/s and the mass ablation rate is 0.0019 g/s for those high SiC content samples tested for 400s. The SEM images of the tested samples showed the mechanism and the non-linear process of ablation resistance progression.