Effect of SiC Location on the Ablation of C/C–SiC Composites in Two Heat Fluxes

How layer-segregated distribution of SiC affects the ablation of C/C–SiC composites was studied in the present work. A certain amount of SiC particles was deposited at the non-woven (C/C–SiC-1) and web (C/C–SiC-2) layer of 2D needle-punched carbon fibre fabric reinforced pyrocarbon composites, respectively. Ablation under oxyacetylene torch demonstrated that the two composites have similar ablation rates in heat flux of 2.38 MW/m2 whereas ablation rates of C/C–SiC-2 were much higher than those of C/C–SiC-1 when heat flux was 4.18 MW/m2. SiO2 covered partially the defective surface of both composites in the lower heat flux. The different SiC locations induced distinct defects and then led to the two composites' dissimilar ablation rates in the higher heat flux.