Numerical simulation of chemical vapor deposition process for fabrication of SiC coating

A mathematical model for depicting chemical vapor deposition process to fabricate SiC coating on carbon/carbon composites was developed. The concentration field of the reactive gases in reactor and the concentration distribution of reactive gases on the surface of sample were simulated with the finite element analysis. Combined with the experimental results, it is validated that along the flow direction of the reactive gases, the dimension of the as-deposited SiC crystal diminishes gradually with the concentration of the reactive gases decreasing, and the microstructure of the SiC crystal evolves from island to grain, and then to whisker.