Task 6.3/6.7.4 - Silicon Carbide Joining

Future energy systems will be required to fire low-grade fuels and meet higher energy conversion efficiencies than today's systems. The steam cycle used at present is limited to a maximum temperature of 550 "C, because above that the stainless steel tubes deform and corrode excessively. To boost efficiency significantly, much higher working fluid temperatures are required. Although high-temperature alloys will suffice for the construction of these components in the near-term, the greatest efficiency increases can only be reached with the use of advanced structural ceramics such as silicon carbide (SiC). However, SiC does not melt, but instead sublimes at temperatures over 2000 "C. Therefore, it is not possible to join pieces of it through welding, and most brazing compounds have much lower melting points so the joints lose strength at temperatures much lower than the maximum use temperature of the SiC. Since larger objects, such as heat exchangers, cannot be easily created from smaller ceramic pieces, the size of the SiC structures that can presently be manufactured are limited by the size of the sintering furnaces (approximately 10 feet for sintered alpha silicon carbide). In addition, repair of the objects will require the use of field joining techniques. Some success has been made by causing silicon and carbon to react at 1400 0-1 500 "C to form SiC in a joint (Rabin, 1995) but these joints contain continuous channels of unreacted silicon which cause the joints to corrode and creep excessively at temperatures below 1260 "C (Breder, 1996). At present, no joining techniques are available that allow sintered alpha SiC to be used to its full potential