Ablation and mechanical investigation of heat vulcanizing silicone rubber (HVSR) composite containing carbon fibers

Abstract

Abstract In this study, heat vulcanizing silicone rubber (HVSR) composites were prepared and the impact of the addition of carbon fibers (CFs) on the mechanical and ablation properties of the composite was demonstrated. It was found that with increasing content of CFs, the tensile property and the hardness of the composite increased significantly. The back-face temperature, the ablation rate and the ablation mechanism of the composite were discussed based on the data derived from several characterization methods, including oxygen-acetylene ablation device, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR). Along with the increasing of the content of CFs, the mass and linear ablation rates both decreased, but the back-face temperature increased. The interaction between ablation layer and the composite became intense due to the addition of the CFs, which led to the difficult peel-off of the ablation layer. Four layers can be formed after the oxygen-acetylene ablation of the composite including the surface layer, the carbonization layer, the pyrolysis layer and the matrix layer. The ablation mechanism was also proposed. It mainly involves the carbonization of the composite, the ceramization of SiC and the shielding effect of the ablated layer.