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High-strength alkali-resistant sintered SiC fibre stable to 2,200 °C

Abstract

The high-temperature stability of SiC-based ceramics has led to their use in high-temperature structural materials and composites1,2,3. In particular, silicon carbide fibres are used in tough fibre-reinforced composites. Here we describe a type of silicon carbide fibre obtained by sintering an amorphous Si–Al–C–O fibre precursor at 1,800 °C. The fibres, which have a very small aluminium content, have a high tensile strength and modulus, and show no degradation in strength or change in composition on heating to 1,900 °C in an inert atmosphere and 1,000 °C in air — a performance markedly superior to that of existing commercial SiC-based fibres such as Hi-Nicalon. Moreover, our fibres show better high-temperature creep resistance than commercial counterparts. We also find that the mechanical properties of the fibres are retained on heating in air after exposure to a salt solution, whereas both a representative commercial SiC fibre and a SiC-based fibre containing a small amount of boron were severely degraded under these conditions4. This suggests that our material is well suited to use in environments exposed to salts — for example, in structures in a marine setting or in the presence of combustion gases containing alkali elements.

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Figure 1: SEM micrographs and TEM image of our sintered SiC fibre.
Figure 2: High-temperature performance of our sintered SiC fibre.
Figure 3: One-hour stress relaxation ratio of the sintered SiC fibre and other well-known SiC-based fibres.
Figure 4: SEM micrograph of the surface of each fibre which had been immersed in deionized water saturated with NaCl at room temperature, and then annealed at 1,000 °C in air for 2 h.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Y. Harada, H. Yamaoka, T. Hisayuki, S. Iwase and T. Fujii for their contributions.

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Correspondence to Toshihiro Ishikawa.

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Ishikawa, T., Kohtoku, Y., Kumagawa, K. et al. High-strength alkali-resistant sintered SiC fibre stable to 2,200 °C. Nature 391, 773–775 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/35820

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