Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs)

 Ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are a subgroup of

composite material as well as a subgroup of technical
ceramic.

 They consist of ceramic fibers embedded in a ceramic

matrix, thus forming a ceramic fiber reinforced ceramic
(CFRC) material.

 Ceramic materials often exhibit a combination of useful

physical and mechanical properties, including high
refractoriness, but their applications are restricted due to
their brittle behavior.

 In an attempt to improve the strength, and particularly the

toughness, of brittle ceramics particle-strengthening and
fiber-reinforcement have been utilized, with limited success
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 Ceramic Matrix Composites are reinforced by either

continuous(long) fiber or discontinuous(short) fiber.

 Short-fiber (discontinuous) composites are produced by

conventional ceramic processes from an oxide (alumina)
or non-oxide (silicon carbide) ceramic matrix reinforced
by whiskers of silicon carbide (SiC), titanium diboride
(TiB2), aluminum nitride(AlN),zirconium oxide(ZrO2) and
other ceramic fibers.

 Most of CMC are reinforced by silicon carbide fibers due

to their high strength and stiffness.

 However a character of failure of short-fiber reinforced

materials is catastrophic (causing a lot of damage).
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 The best strengthening effect is provided by

dispersed phase in form of continuous
monofilament fibers, which are fabricated by
chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of silicon carbide
on a substrate made of tungsten (W) or carbon (C)
fibers.

 Monofilament fibers produce stronger interfacial

bonding with the matrix material improving its
toughness.

 Failure of long-fiber Ceramic Matrix Composites is

not catastrophic.
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 High mechanical strength even at high

temperatures
 High thermal shock resistance

 High stiffness

 High toughness

 High thermal stability

 Low density

 High corrosion resistance even at high

temperatures.
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 Matrix material for long-fiber (continuous fiber) composite

may be;

 Silicon carbide ceramic,

 Alumina and alumina-silica matrix
 Carbon-carbon composite
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)
 Structural applications -improvements in the
mechanical properties
 Develop for two reason;

i) Involve high temperature material and employed

with high temperature reinforcement
- monolithic ceramic maintain their properties to
higher temp.
- retain characteristic with good higher properties of
reinforcement
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

ii) Thermal stresses

-difference coefficient thermal expansion between

matrix and reinforcement
- leads thermal stress on cooling from processing
- relieved by plastic deformation of matrix by
addition of matching reinforcement
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

3.3.1 SiC reinforced alumina

 increases in strength, fracture toughness, thermal conductivity,
thermal shock resistance and high temperature creep
resistance.
 Made by variation method of slurry

 Whiskers content typically 25% or less

 Whiskers tend to lie perpendicular to the press axis

 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 Application;
-cutting tools for wood and metal industries
-pipework carrying solid suspended in gasses or
liquid
- wear application- disk break
 manufacturing combustion liners of gas turbine
engines
 hot gas re-circulating fans
 gas-fired burner parts
 filters for hot liquids
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 SiC less dense than alumina so reinforcing

SiC leads to a small decrease in density

 Young’s modulus improved by the

presence of stiff SiC

 Decrease in density and increase in

stiffness result in higher specific modulus
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 Stress intensity of crack growth increase with

crack length

 Bridging crack faces by strong SiC whisker

may be giving some toughness

 Properties maintain as room temperature

increase
Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

Effect of SiC content on (a) strength (b) Toughness of alumina

 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)
3.3.2 Zirconia toughened Alumina (ZTA)
 The best established particulate reinforced alumina

 contain10-20% fine zirconia, ZrO2 particle

 The equilibrium condition of zirconia at elevated temperature

is tetragonal and monoclinic at low temperature
 ZTA is toughened by micro-cracking

 The strength and toughness of ZTA as a function of zirconia

when transformation toughening mechanism is operative

 cooling ZTA required transformation from t (tetragonal) → m

(monoclinic) called anthermal transformation
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 The volume will increase by 3%

 Stabilizing oxide is added to the zirconia to suppress

the t→m transformation

 If transformation take place in zirconia particles in

ZTA during production, the increment of 3%
microcrack in the alumina matrix

 Particle retained in the tetragonal state at room

temperature-metastable state
 3.0 Matrix System

Strength and toughness of ZTA as function of volume fraction

 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)
Glass-ceramic matrix composites

 Produce by slurry based method technique

 Used carbon fiber, SiC yarn, Nicalon and Tyranno (Si-

Zr-C-O)

 Glass composition, particle size and temperature have to

be carefully selected to have good microstructure and
properties

 Crystallization after sintering give effective increase in

density
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)
 Most widely glass matrix used is Lithium aminosilicate
(LAS) system.

 Working temperature range 1000-1200°C

 Young modulus of LAS at room temperature is 100GPa

 The strain to failure of glass-ceramic matrix is lower than SiC.

 On loading, matrix cracking occur before failure of fibers

 The composites is design to have sufficient fiber to carry the
load transferred from matrix

 The composites continue to carry load until reached the

weakest fiber

 Fiber fracture and pull out continue under the decreasing load
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 The toughness of the composites is measure by

energy of fracture

 Weak fiber matrix interface is necessary to obtain the

debonding and pull out for good toughness

 Low interfacial strength marked the toughness

 At strain at which the weakest fiber fail the matrix

carrying negligible load
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 Tensile strength of SiC fiber is high, 2000 MPa

 By volume fraction fiber typically 0.5, strength

of composites should be 1000 MPa

 The strength and stiffness of the cross-plied is

less than unidirectional composites

 Transverse strength of composites is less than

5% of unidirectional strength
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)
 Nicalon (SiC)-reinforced glass and glass-ceramics.
 When SiC is incorporated into borosilicate or high-silica-glass

matrices, these fibers provide high levels of flexural strength

accompanied by extremely fibrous fracture morphologies relatable to
high crack growth resistance and toughness.

 The loss of composite strength at elevated temperatures found for these

systems was associated with softening of the glass which in turn
resulted in specimens simply deforming under load rather than
fracturing.

 Through the use of glass-ceramic matrices this difficulty was overcome

since these compositions could be hot-pressed in a low-viscosity state
and then crystallized to achieve a high-temperature composite.

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 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)
 The limited temperature capability of glass as matrix
materials led to the use of glass-ceramics. These materials
are formed in two steps.

 First, glass formation processes are conducted followed by

a controlled crystallization step to form a fully dense
ceramic.

 This matrix material offers ease of vitreous preparation

combined with the high-temperature capability of a
crystallized ceramic.

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 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 Currently, expensive coated SiC and carbon fibers are used

to form a barrier between the ceramic matrix and the fibers,
and careful selection of materials can therefore reveal the
full potential of these new composites.

 An understanding of the mechanism of the interfacial

reaction between the fiber and the matrix is thus important
in order to point the way toward cheaper and better
materials.

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 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

 Whisker-reinforced glass and glass-ceramics.

 In whisker-reinforced glass and glass-ceramic matrix
composites, the whisker composites exhibited room temperature
flexure strengths of 140 Mpa

 linear load deflection curves to the point of fracture and very

brittle fracture surfaces with essentially no whisker
pulloutcomposites.

 The strength of a 7740 glass bar tested in flexure under similar

conditions was 60 MPa.
 Thus the whiskers strengthened the glass but did not change its
fracture characteristics appreciably.
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 Discontinuous-fiber reinforcement of glass-glass-ceramics.

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 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)
3.4 Carbon-carbon composites
 Consist of fibrous carbon in a carboneous matrix.

 Carbon fiber in a form of chop fibers and continuous fibers

mats.
 Carbon matrix is highly crystalline graphite or glassy

depending on production
 fiber type, morphology, matrix structure and porosity content
will affect the final properties
 Carbon-carbon composite are fabricated by chemical

vapor infiltration or Liquid phase infiltration methods of a

matrix material into a preform prepared from carbon
fibers
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)

3.4.1 Porous carbon-carbon composites

 Known as carbon bonded carbon fiber (CBCF)

 Carbon content in the range 70 to 90% is

insulation material at high temp.

 Can only be employed under vacuum and inert

atmosphere
 Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMC)
 Low modulus fibers used from rayon precursor
 The final product is extremely pure consist of 99%
carbon contents.

 The properties is mainly determine by porosity

content and fibers orientation are an isotropic

 90% porosity and the strength is low than other

CMCs but adequate for insulating application
 Carbon-carbon Composites (CCC)
3.4.2 Dense carbon-carbon composites

 Continuous and discontinuous fiber are used for the

reinforcement

 Discontinuous fiber tend to be used to

i) fabricate large component
ii) Produce more isotropic material
iii) To improve interlaminar strength

 Discontinuous fibers made from rayon or pitch

precursor
 Carbon-carbon Composites (CCC)
 Continuous fiber used to exploit good mechanical properties
with desire degree of anisotropy

 Applications;
i) disc break for racing cars and aircraft
ii) gas turbine component
iii) nose cones
iv) leading edge for missile
v) biomedical implant; bone, heart valve
vi) refractory components
vii) hot-pressed dies
viii) heating elements
 Carbon-carbon Composites (CCC)
 Two techniques to produce dense composites;
i) pyrolysis and carbonization
ii) chemical vapour infiltration

 Mechanical properties maintain to extremely

high temperature

 Performance at elevated temperature is

particularly impressive compared with other
high temperature materials
 Carbon-carbon Composites (CCC)
 Dense carbon-carbon suffer from lack of
oxidation resistance and needs protective
coatings

 Successful coating must satify the criteria:

i) mechanically, chemically and thermally
compatible with the composite
ii) Adhere to the composite
iii) prevent diffusion of oxygen from the
environment
iv) Prevent diffusion of carbon from composite