Evaluation of ablation resistant ZrC-SiC multilayer coating for SiC coated carbon/carbon composites under oxyacetylene and laser conditions

In this work, a multilayer coating based on ZrC-SiC system was fabricated on SiC coated carbon/carbon composites by plasma spraying. Ablation tests were carried out using oxyacetylene torch (2.38 MW/m²) and laser irradiation (113.18 MW/m²). The maximum temperatures reached values over 2000 ℃ for oxyacetylene ablation and 2784 ℃ for laser ablation. Macroscopical survey showed an unbroken profile of the sample after 600 s ablation, though microstructural analysis revealed the formation of a sintered scale with delamination and depletion region. Furthermore, the coating behaved attractive ablation resistance under laser ablation, with only shallow ablation pit developing after 15 s irradiation.