Insight into microstructure and flexural strength of ultra-high temperature ceramics enriched SICARBON(TM) composite

Research efforts on Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) are aimed to increase the operating temperature in oxidizing environments by adding Ultra-High Temperature Ceramic (UHTC) phases to the matrix. The structural performances of UHTC-enriched CMCs are generally investigated through bending test because it requires simple fixture and specimen geometry with small quantity of plate material. However, there are hardly any scientific studies which bring out what bending test conditions are required to determine reliable flexural strength of these composites. In this study, the effect of span length and specimen orientation on the flexural strength of UHTC-enriched SICARBON(TM) material, produced by Airbus, was comprehensively evaluated and reported. Transition of the failure mode was obtained by tilting the specimens with horizontal build direction instead of lay-up configuration (vertical build direction). The tilted configuration allowed to get a valid flexural strength of 370 MPa even with small specimens of about 30 mm. To assess failure mode in different test configurations, virtual microstructure was generated on the base of cumulative distribution functions of observed microstructural features. Tsai-Wu failure criterion was extended in order to evaluate direction dependent failure indices for different lay-up configurations.