ABSTRACT
Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a strong covalent bond ceramic, with a series of advantages, such as high strength, hardness, wear resistance and thermal conductivity, corrosion and oxidation resistance and low density (Shimoda et al. 2010, Bae 2013, Borrero 2007, Bucevarc 2011, Ciudad et al. 2011, Deng et al. 2013). It is widely used in the field of high temperature structure and wear resistance like high temperature nozzles, bearings, seals, wear parts, valves and other parts (Yang et al. 2011, Wu et al. 2015). However, as self-diffusion coefficients of C and Si in SiC are very low, densification cannot be realised unless some sintering aids are added in high temperature conditions (Fan et al. 2014, Wang et al. 2012). Aids themselves will lead to poor performance of composites. In addition, the inherent brittleness also limits its development (He et al. 2009). Therefore, to take advantage of SiC ceramic materials and their wide application, some novel conditions are necessary to realise densification and toughening. At present, the general toughening method is to add fibres to SiC ceramics matrix (Hyun-Woo et al. 2015, Vera 2015, Singh et al. 2011). Carbon fibre is widely used to toughen SiC because of its good strength, elastic modulus and low cost (Inouea et al. 2013, Li et al. 2011). The short fibre can be randomly and evenly distributed in the matrix by controlling the type, length and content of the fibre, and three-dimensional toughening can be achieved on a macro level
machine. The XRD was used to analyse the phase composition of the composites. The surface and fracture morphology of the composites were characterized by SEM, and the dispersion of fibre in the matrix and toughening mechanism were studied.
