Ablation behaviour and mechanism of Mg-modified ZrC-SiC composite in plasma ablation flame

A fully dense Mg-modified ZrC-SiC composite was prepared by spark plasma sintering. The microstructure, phase evolution and ablation behaviour of the composite were investigated. Results show that the formation of a viscous Mg-Si-O liquid phase, as MgSiO3 and Mg2SiO4 were incorporated into molten SiO2, significantly improved the ablation resistance of composite whose mass ablation rate (-5.26 mu g/s) and linear ablation rate (0.03 mu m/s) were both lower than those of the monolithic ZrC-SiC composite (8.21 mu g/s and 2.54 mu m/s, respectively). Furthermore, the introduction of Mg effectively restrained the martensitic transformation from t-ZrO2 to m-ZrO2, strengthening the integrity of the oxide layer.

Automated summary

In this study, a fully dense Mg-modified ZrC-SiC composite was prepared and its microstructure, phase evolution, and ablation behavior were investigated. The results showed that the introduction of Mg significantly improved the ablation resistance and the integrity of the oxide layer.