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Ultra‐High‐Temperature Ceramic Coatings for Oxidation Protection of Carbon–Carbon Composites
Author(s) -
Corral Erica L.,
Loehman Ronald E.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of the american ceramic society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.9
H-Index - 196
eISSN - 1551-2916
pISSN - 0002-7820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1551-2916.2008.02331.x
Subject(s) - materials science , ceramic , composite material , carbon fibers , thermal protection , reinforced carbon–carbon , hypersonic flight , ceramic matrix composite , space shuttle thermal protection system , polymer , thermal , hypersonic speed , composite number , physics , meteorology , mechanics
Carbon–carbon (C–C) composites are attractive materials for hypersonic flight vehicles but they oxidize in air at temperatures >500°C and need thermal protection systems to survive aerothermal heating. We investigated using multilayers of high‐temperature ceramics such as ZrB 2 and SiC to protect C–C against oxidation. Our approach combines pretreatment and processing steps to create continuous and adherent high‐temperature ceramic coatings from infiltrated preceramic polymers. We tested our protective coatings at temperatures above 2600°C at the National Solar Thermal Testing Facility using controlled cold‐wall heat flux profiles reaching a maximum of 680 W/cm 2 .