Ablation property of SiC-TaSi₂ coated carbon/carbon composites

To prevent the carbon/carbon (C/C) composites from ablation, a new type of ablation protective coating was prepared on the surface of the C/C composites by a step pack cementation technique. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis show, the coatings obtained by pack cementation were silicon carbide/tantalum silicide (SiC-TaSi₂). The ablation behavior of the coated samples were evaluated by the oxyacetylene flame. The results show that, the SiC-TaSi₂ coating can improve the anti-ablative properties of C/C composites effectively. The mass ablation rate for the coated C/C composites was only 7.7 × 10^-4 g/s, which was lower by 79% than that of the C/C composites after ablation for 30 s.