Fabrication of carbon/carbon composites by an electrified preform heating CVI method

Carbon/carbon composites are manufactured using the electrified preform producing directly heat CVI process. The preforms are prepared by laminating the carbon fiber felts with crossply reinforcement, and infiltrated with carbon using natural gas or propylene as a reactant, with nitrogen as diluent at atmospheric pressure. The relations between the resistivity of samples and infiltration time are determined under the operating conditions. The results indicate that the preforms have gained a high infiltration rate by this technology, and the samples have higher densities using natural gas rather than propylene. Their highest average bulk densities are up to 1.71 g/cm(3) after the preforms of 1100X500X35 mm size have been densified for 80 h using natural gas. The carbon fibres in the preforms have not been damaged by this technology as yet, and the composites prepared have sufficiently high flexural properties. As the brake angular velocity is increased with the constant brake moment inertia and specific pressure, the average coefficient of friction for the composites prepared using natural gas is linearly and greatly decreased, but the variations of the brake moment inertia have a slight influence on the average coefficient of the friction when the brake angular velocity and specific pressure are kept constant. Their average thickness wear is 13X10(-4) mm/surface per stop. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.