Carbon Fiber Reinforced Carbon Composites

Basics

• A Composite Material consisting of Carbon Fiber reinforcement suspended in an Artificial Graphite matrix
• Made via using Carbon Fiber (CF) matting, winding, or some sort of other "preform"
• The main variation in methodology is what process is used for the graphite production
• The Three Main Processes Are:
  • Liquid Impregnation
    • Via Pitch or Resin (Need to see if Thermoplastics are an option)
  • Chemical Vapor Infiltration or CVI
    • Less info on this proces, but "Film Boiling Chemical Vapor Infiltration" (FB-CVI) is the fastest method supposedly
  • Chemical Vapor Deposition or CVD
• There are various grades, mainly in how the carbon fiber is arranged, and the purity of the final graphite
• Main use cases are where high strength and temperature resistance are needed (often low weight too, but not always NEEDED)
  • Often aerospace (The Space Shuttle used this material for it's Nose Cone, and the Wing's Leading Edges for instance)

External Links

• The Wikipedia Page on Carbon Fiber Reinforced Carbon Composites
• A Video Lecture on the Subject by NPTEL
• A Decent Flow Chart (The above video lecture had a better one, need to see if the slideshow is available)
• A Paper Entitled "Fast Densification Process in Manufacturing Carbon/Carbon Using Vegetable Precursors", also has a pile of references to other FB-CVI papers to dive into