Additive manufacturing of continuous carbon fiber-reinforced silicon carbide ceramic composites

A material extrusion (MEX) technology has been developed for the additive manufacturing of continuous carbon fiber-reinforced silicon carbide ceramic (C-f/SiC) composites. By comparing and analyzing the rheological properties of the slurries with different compositions, a slurry with a high solid loading of 48.1 vol% and high viscosity was proposed. Furthermore, several complex structures of C-f/SiC ceramic composites were printed by this MEX additive manufacturing technique. Phenolic resin impregnation-carbonization process reduces the apparent porosity of the green body and protects the C-f. Finally, the reactive melting infiltration (RMI) process was used to prepare samples with different C-f contents from 0 to 2 K (a bundle of carbon fibers consisting of 1000 fibers). Samples with C-f content of 1 K show the highest bending strength (161.6 & PLUSMN; 10.5 MPa) and fracture toughness (3.72 & PLUSMN; 0.11 MPa & BULL;m(1/2)) while the thermal conductivity of the samples with the C-f content of 1 K reached 11.0 W/(m & BULL;K). This study provides a strategy to prepare C-f/SiC composites via MEX additive manufacturing and RMI.