The conversion of carbon preforms to dense SiC by liquid infiltration is a prospectively low-cost and reliable method of forming SiC-Si composites with complex shapes and high densities. Si powder was coated on top of a 2.0wt .% Y₂O₃-added carbon preform, and reaction bonded silicon carbide (RBSC) was prepared by infiltrating molten Si at 1,450°C for 1-8 h. Reactive sintering of the Y₂O₃-free carbon preform caused Si to be pushed to one side, thereby forming cracking defects. However, when prepared from the Y₂O₃-added carbon preform, a SiC-Si composite in which Si is homogeneously distributed in the SiC matrix without cracking can be produced. Using the Si + C → SiC reaction at 1,450°C, 3C and 6H SiC phases, crystalline Si, and Y₂O₃ were generated based on XRD analysis, without the appearance of graphite. The RBSC prepared from the Y₂O₃-added carbon preform was densified by increasing the density and decreasing the porosity as the holding time increased at 1,450°C. Dense RBSC, which was reaction sintered at 1,450°C for 4 h from the 2.0wt.% Y₂O₃-added carbon preform, had an apparent porosity of 0.11% and a relative density of 96.8%.

Molybdenum silicide has gained interest for high temperature structural applications. However, poor fracture toughness at room temperatures and low creep resistance at elevated temperatures have hindered its practical applications. This study uses a novel powder metallurgical approach applied to uniformly mixed molybdenum silicidebased composites with silicon carbide. The degree of powder mixing with different ball milling time is also demonstrated by Voronoi diagrams. Core-shell composite powder with Mo nanoparticles as the shell and β-SiC as the core is prepared via chemical vapor transport. Using this prepared core-shell composite powder, the molybdenum silicide-based composites with uniformly dispersed β-SiC are fabricated using pressureless sintering. The relative density of the specimens sintered at 1500°C for 10 h is 97.1%, which is similar to pressure sintering owing to improved sinterability using Mo nanoparticles.

Conductive and dielectric SiC are fabricated using electroless plating of Ni–Fe films on SiC chopped fibers to obtain lightweight and high-strength microwave absorbers. The electroless plating of Ni–Fe films is achieved using a two-step process of surface sensitizing and metal plating. The complex permeability and permittivity are measured for the composite specimens with the metalized SiC chopped fibers dispersed in a silicone rubber matrix. The original noncoated SiC fibers exhibit considerable dielectric losses. The complex permeability spectrum does not change significantly with the Ni–Fe coating. Moreover, dielectric constant is sensitively increased with Ni–Fe coating, owing to the increase of the space charge polarization. The improvements in absorption capability (lower reflection loss and small matching thickness) are evident with Ni–Fe coating on SiC fibers. For the composite SiC fibers coated with Ni–Fe thin films, a -35 dB reflection loss is predicted at 7.6 GHz with a matching thickness of 4 mm.

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• Magnetic sputtering of FeNi/C bilayer film on SiC fibers for effective microwave absorption in the low-frequency region
  Tong Guo, Ben Huang, Changgeng Li, Yumin Lou, Xiu-Zhi Tang, Xiaozhong Huang, Jianling Yue
  Ceramics International.2021; 47(4): 5221.     CrossRef

Reaction-bonded silicon carbide (RBSC) is a SiC-based composite ceramic fabricated by the infiltration of molten silicon into a skeleton of SiC particles and carbon, in order to manufacture a ceramic body with full density. RBSC has been widely used and studied for many years in the SiC field, because of its relatively low processing temperature for fabrication, easy use in forming components with a near-net shape, and high density, compared with other sintering methods for SiC. A radiant tube is one of the most commonly employed ceramics components when using RBSC materials in industrial fields. In this study, the mechanical strengths of commercial RBSC tubes with different sizes are evaluated using 3-point flexural and C-ring tests. The size scaling law is applied to the obtained mechanical strength values for specimens with different sizes. The discrepancy between the flexural and C-ring strengths is also discussed.

RBSC (reaction-bonded silicon carbide) represents a family of composite ceramics processed by infiltrating with molten silicon into a skeleton of SiC particles and carbon in order to fabricate a fully dense body of silicon carbide. RBSC has been commercially used and widely studied for many years, because of its advantages, such as relatively low temperature for fabrication and easier to form components with near-net-shape and high relative density, compared with other sintering methods. In this study, RBSC was fabricated with different size of SiC in the raw material. Microstructure, thermal and mechanical properties were characterized with the reaction-sintered samples in order to examine the effect of SiC size on the thermal and mechanical properties of RBSC ceramics. Especially, phase volume fraction of each component phase, such as Si, SiC, and C, was evaluated by using an image analyzer. The relationship between microstructures and physical properties was also discussed.

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• Structural and Mechanical Properties of SiC-Rich By-Products of the Metal Grade Si Process
  Thomas Hafner, Jonas Hafner, Frank Kimm, Vira Bovda, Oleksandr Bovda, Oleksandr Kuprin, Anatoliy Pikalov, Kostiantyn Lentsov, Pavlo Schikhaylo, Yriy Onyschuk, Andriy Tarasuk, Viktoriya Podhurska, Bogdan Vasyliv, Oleksandr Shcheretsky, Ihor Vorona, Roman Y
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• Effect of Y2O3 Additive Amount on Densification of Reaction Bonded Silicon Carbides Prepared by Si Melt Infiltration into All Carbon Preform
  Kyeong-Sik Cho, Min-Ho Jang
  Korean Journal of Materials Research.2021; 31(5): 301.     CrossRef
• Mechanical Strength Values of Reaction-Bonded-Silicon-Carbide Tubes with Different Sample Size
  Seongwon Kim, Soyul Lee, Yoon-Suk Oh, Sung-Min Lee, Yoonsoo Han, Hyun-Ick Shin, Youngseok Kim
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