Authors:

Ella Richardson

Date Created:

Not specified

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About Paper:

Thermal protection systems (TPS), rocket nozzles, and other high temperature aerospace components are often made of ceramic matrix composites (CMCs). CMCs can be manufactured using methods including silicon infiltration, chemical vapor deposition, and polymer pyrolysis, but these first two processes are costly and time consuming. Additive manufacturing techniques have shown promise to produce CMCs via polymer pyrolysis because they could reduce the manufacturing time and allow for a more tailored design of the part. This project aims to study how 3D printing affects the microstructure of fiber filled ceramics and their resulting mechanical and erosion rate properties. To do this, a mixture of photocurable preceramic polymer resin was created and filled with milled fiber reinforcements from 20-40 wt. %. These filled mixtures were photocured, and their cure depths were measured with calipers. The cure depth was found to be more dependent on solids loading than cure time. The maximum cure depth was 1.01 mm at 30 wt. % fiber after 2 minutes of drying and 5 minutes of curing, which provides a potential layer height for printing. The cure depth slightly increased with higher solids loading before it reached 30 wt. % where it then decreased again. The selected mixture was extruded, photo- cured, and pyrolyzed into test specimens for thermal ablation and flexural tests. Additive manufacturing was used to rapidly print photocurable fiber reinforced ceramic resins to produce CMCs for aerospace applications, such as components on rocket nozzles and TPS.

Source:

Purdue University / 2023

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Ella Richardson