Ablation behavior of the ZrC coating on C/C composite with the construction of thermal dispersal network

In this work, the coating and the matrix are connected as a whole by the continuous fibers. To achieve this goal, the C/C composite with carbon fibers in its surface region is prepared by the directional deposition of pyrolytic carbon (PyC). Compared with the conventional C/C composite that has a porous structure in the whole bulk, the as-prepared composite has a higher efficiency of polymer infiltration and pyrolysis (PIP) process (an improvement of about 88%). The carbon fiber network would provide the thermal channels for the coating during the ablation, which would reduce the ablation temperature (a decrease of about 180 °C) and thermal gradient in the coating, and then the thermal stress would decrease during the ablation, showing the good anti-ablation performance (the linear ablation rate of which is about 68.4% and 39.7% lower than pure C/C composite and conventional C/C-ZrC composite).