Preparation of carbon fiber-reinforced zirconium carbide matrix composites by reactive melt infiltration at relative low temperature

An attractive way to prepare carbon fiber-reinforced ZrC matrix composites was proposed and confirmed experimentally. The experimental results showed that the resulting composites were fabricated by immersing carbon/carbon preforms in molten Zr2Cu at 1200 °C for 3 h. ZrC was the main phase, with a content of 42.2 ± 1.3 vol.%. The composites exhibited excellent ablation resistance when undergoing ablation with an oxyacetylene torch, the mass loss rate and linear recession rate being 0.0006 ± 0.0001 g s−1 and 0.0003 ± 0.0001 mm s−1, respectively.