Preparation and thermal ablation behavior of titanium diboride/(copper, nickel) C4 material

Co-continuous ceramic matrix composites (C4) are a new class of composite materials in which both phases are three-dimensionally (3D) continuous in spatial. In this study, TiB2/(Cu,Ni) C4 material with the TiB2 content of 81.6% was prepared by high temperature sintering and melt-infiltration processing. The thermal ablation behavior of TiB2/(Cu,Ni) C4 material was conducted by alternating plasma arc heating. The microstructure, interfacial bonding and ablated surface or cross sections were investigated using SEM, TEM, HRTEM and XRD. The results show that the ablation mechanism of TiB2/(Cu,Ni) C4 material is mainly transpiration cooling of metal phase at elevated temperature coupled with oxidation ablation. The properties measurement and microstructure analysis after ablative experiment reveals a clue of redistribution of infiltrated Cu alloy so as to analyze and explain the functioning of transpiration cooling at high temperature.