Ablation behaviour of a TaC coating on SiC coated C/C composites at different temperatures

To improve the ablation resistance of carbon/carbon (C/C) composites, a TaC coating was prepared by supersonic plasma spraying on SiC coated C/C composites. The microstructure and morphology of the coatings were characterised by Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The ablation properties were studied at different temperatures under oxyacetylene torch. At 2100 degrees C, the oxides were blown away and resulted in high ablation rates: 1.2 x 10(-2) mm/s and 3.9 x 10(-3) g/s. However, most oxides can remain in ablation centre and serve as a coating at low temperature (1900 and 1800 degrees C). Therefore, the TaC/SiC coated samples exhibited zero linear ablation rate and lower mass ablation rate. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.