Boron Modified Phenol Formaldehyde Derived Cf/SiBOC Composites with Improved Mechanical Strength for High Temperature Applications

Abstract

Ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are potential thermo-structural materials for use in space applications. Fiber/matrix (F/M) interface plays a key role in determining the mechanical properties of CMCs. Present study focuses on the optimization of F/M volume ratio and the influence of Pyrocarbon (PyC) interphase coating on the mechanical properties of CMCs derived from precursor route. CMCs are fabricated using phenol formaldehyde (PF) resin and boron modified PF (BPF) resin as precursor slurries, 2D carbon fabric (Toray, T300 3K, 8H, satin weave) as reinforcement and PyC as interphase. The deposition of PyC interphase was done by chemical vapor infiltration on the carbon fabric followed by densification of the matrix using reaction bonded silicon carbide method. In CMCs prepared from PF resin, without interphase the flexural strength improves from 25 ± 3.9 MPa (fiber content-40) to 63 ± 9.9 MPa (fiber content-60) on increasing the fiber vol%. In the second part of the investigation, the effect of PyC interphase was studied using CMCs prepared from BPF resin with fiber volume ratio of 60 %. The CMCs with PyC interphase shows an improvement in flexural strength (102 ± 11.5 MPa) compared to that of CMCs prepared without interphase (38 ± 4.4 MPa). The fractography of CMCs with and without interphase was closely evaluated under a scanning electron microscope. CMCs without interphase show no fiber pull-out, indicating the strong fiber-matrix bonding. While CMCs with interphase show fiber pull-out phenomenon and hence fails in a ductile manner.