Abstract
SiC ceramics have good physical chemical and mechanical properties such as high melting point, high hardness, high Young's modulus, good corrosion resistance and low density. These properties give to SiC materials a wide application area such as advanced engineering ceramics, aerospace materials, nuclear energy processing materials and ballistic protection materials. Since the first report of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and sequentially followed carbon nanofibers (CNFs), there has been increasing research and development into process of dispersing and functionalizing these materials to exploit their excellent potential as functional additives and reinforcements. Thus, ceramic/carbon composites appear as a very interesting option, moreover when carbon has been used as sintering additive for SiC ceramics. In this work, it has been studied the silicon carbide reinforcement with carbon nanofibers and the possibility of enhance the affinity between Carbon and Silicon carbide through a chemical processing route. In the present study pulsed e1ectric-current pressure sintering (PECPS) has been adopted for fabrication of monolithic SiC ceramic and CNFs/SiC nanocomposite materials. The aim of this work is to develop carbon nanofibers-reinforced silicon carbide nanocomposites (SiC/20vol.% CNFs) and to improve interface strength between the components through a surface coating on CNFs with silkon carbide nanoparticles precursor by sol-gel process. The composites obtained were compared in terms of their microstructural evolution and mechanical properties.
