Fabrication and ablation testing of 4D C/C composite at 10 MW/m2 heat flux under a plasma arc heater

Four directional Carbon-Carbon composite was fabricated and thermo-physical properties were evaluated upto 1200 degrees C in different directions. Ablation behavior was studied with and without SIC coating in air plasma at a heat flux of 10 MW/m(2) for 60 s. Thermo-physical properties are found to be almost same in all the directions. The average mass and linear ablation rates without coating were found to be 113.105 g/m(2)s and 0.06024 mm/s for while with coating these were 103.282 g/m(2)s and 0.0570 mm/s. Morphology of the ablated specimens has been discussed; the ablation starts at the weakest and porous primary carbon matrix. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.