Design, Preparation and Properties of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Ultra-High Temperature Ceramic Composites for Aerospace Applications: A Review

Carbon fiber reinforced ultra-high temperature ceramic (UHTC) composites, consisting of carbon fibers embedded in a UHTC-matrix or a C–SiC–UHTC-matrix, are deemed as the most viable class of materials that can overcome the poor fracture toughness and thermal shock resistance of monolithic UHTC materials, and also improve the oxidation resistance and ablation resistance of C/C and C/SiC composites at ultra-high temperatures. In this review, we summarize the different processing routes of the composites based on the UHTC introducing methods, including chemical vapor infiltration/deposition (CVI/D), precursor infiltration and pyrolysis (PIP), reactive melt infiltration (RMI), slurry infiltration (SI), in-situ reaction, hot pressing (HP), etc; and the advantages and drawbacks of each method are briefly discussed. The carbon fiber reinforced UHTC composites can be highly tailorable materials in terms of fiber, interface, and matrix. From the perspective of service environmental applications for engine propulsions and hypersonic vehicles, the material designs (mainly focusing on the composition, quantity, structure of matrix, as well as the architecture of carbon fibers, UHTCs and pores), their relevant processing routes and properties (emphasizing on the mechanical and ablation properties) are discussed in this paper. In addition, we propose a material architecture to realize the multi-function through changing the distribution of carbon fibers, UHTCs and pores, which will be an important issue for future development of carbon fiber reinforced UHTC composites.