Abstract
The densification of additively manufactured porous preforms by chemical vapor infiltration (CVI) is studied using pore-resolved simulations and experiments. Experimentally, 3D printed silicon carbide (SiC) preforms are subject to CVI synthesis using methyltrichlorosilane (MTS) precursor to obtain high purity SiC/SiC composites. Optical images of the cross sections of the processed preforms are analyzed to obtain the spatial porosity distribution. The numerical method is based on a level set formulation to capture the spatial distribution and time evolution of the pore scale microstructural characteristics. The coupled transport and kinetic effects are represented using a dimensionless Thiele modulus. Simulations are initialized using representative synthetic preform geometries comprising of packed particles based on the size distribution of the powder used for 3D printing. The simulation results are validated against the experimental observations in terms of total density and the distribution of residual porosity. The densification characteristics, porosity classification, concentration profiles, and structure functions are analyzed as functions of processing temperature and Thiele modulus.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2421-2441 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Journal of the American Ceramic Society |
| Volume | 105 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2022 |
Funding
The research was funded by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The research used the computational resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) and the Compute and Data Environment for Science (CADES) facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which are supported by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE‐AC05‐00OR22725. This manuscript has been authored by UT‐Battelle, LLC, under contract DE‐AC05‐00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid‐up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe‐public‐access‐plan).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy | DE‐AC05‐00OR22725 |
| Office of Science | |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory |
