A novel powder coated fibre pre-processing route to metal matrix composites

Abstract

Since the dawn of the transport, and in particular, the aerospace engineering industry, there has been an ever-growing need for high performance and high temperature materials. Materials such as titanium/ silicon carbide fibre metal matrix composites (Ti/ SiC MMCs) provide high strength, low density and operate at high temperature to their particular applications. Unfortunately, the maturing technology of Ti/SiC MMCs still suffers from extremely high fabrication costs. Reducing this and increasing component processing flexibility remain the priorities of current research. This article presents a Powder Coated Fibre pre-processing technique to meet such industrial requirements. The technique is based on slurry powder metallurgy and presents itself as a cost-effective alternative to current Ti/SiC MMCs processing methods. It involves firstly, mixing matrix powder particles with an appropriate organic binder and solvent to form a slurry, drawing a continuous silicon carbide fibre through the slurry onto a winding drum, drying the coated-fibre and finally laying up the coated fibre into a composite pre-form for subsequent consolidation. The organic component is removed from the pre-form matrix via a binder burnout phase prior to composite consolidation.