High-precision CTE measurement of hybrid C/SiC composite for cryogenic space telescopes

This paper presents highly precise measurements of thermal expansion of a “hybrid” carbon-fiber reinforced silicon carbide composite, HB-Cesic® – a trademark of ECM, in the temperature region of ∼310–10 K. Whilst C/SiC composites have been considered to be promising for the mirrors and other structures of space-borne cryogenic telescopes, the anisotropic thermal expansion has been a potential disadvantage of this material. HB-Cesic® is a newly developed composite using a mixture of different types of chopped, short carbon-fiber, in which one of the important aims of the development was to reduce the anisotropy. The measurements indicate that the anisotropy was much reduced down to 4% as a result of hybridization. The thermal expansion data obtained are presented as functions of temperature using eighth-order polynomials separately for the horizontal (XY-) and vertical (Z-) directions of the fabrication process. The average CTEs and their dispersion (1σ) in the range 293–10 K derived from the data for the XY- and Z-directions were 0.805 ± 0.003 × 10−6 K−1 and 0.837 ± 0.001 × 10−6 K−1, respectively. The absolute accuracy and the reproducibility of the present measurements are suggested to be better than 0.01 × 10−6 K−1 and 0.001 × 10−6 K−1, respectively. The residual anisotropy of the thermal expansion was consistent with our previous speculation regarding carbon-fiber, in which the residual anisotropy tended to lie mainly in the horizontal plane.