Oxidation Mechanism of ZrB₂-SiC Tested in a Solar Furnace above 2200°C

Abstract:

The solar furnace is a heating system based on concentrated sunrays on the material surface. It is an original method for testing ultra-high-temperature ceramics (UHTC) at very high temperature (above 2200°C) in air with an exposure time of several minutes. In this study, the solar flux is 15.5 MW.m-2 with a homogeneous exposed surface of 10 mm2. A large temperature-time composition parameters space is covered producing a large set of oxidized samples. Massive cylindrical specimens of UHTC materials are prepared by spark plasma sintering at 1900°C under a pressure of 100 MPa for 5 minutes. Then, samples are tested in air from 1750°C up to 2400°C with dwell times varied from 1 to 5 min. During oxidation of ZrB2-SiC (20%vol) material, the formed and known complex oxide scale identified from literature is easily reproduced using this method. It consists of a thin outer silica layer and zirconia columnar layer with a region of SiC depleted zone in ZrB2 phase. The impact of the reduction of Si content is quantified and the coating ZrB2-20%vol SiC is tested as protection on C-C composite.

• Periodical: Advances in Science and Technology (Volume 65)
• Pages: 124-129
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AST.65.124
• Online since: October 2010
• Authors: Anne-Sophie Andreani, Francis Rebillat, Angéline Poulon-Quintin
• Keywords: Composite C/C, Oxidation, Solar Furnace, Ultra High Temperature Ceramic (UHTC), ZrB₂-SiC

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