Ablation behaviour and microstructure of carbon/carbon and hybrid carbon/carbon composites based on plasma torch heating

The ablation properties and morphologies of two kinds of fine Fine-woven pierced composites materials, carbon/carbon (C/C) and hybrid C/C with tungsten (W) filaments in z directional carbon fibre bundles, were investigated. A plasma torch was used to explore the ablative characteristics in terms of linear/bulk ablation rate and microscopic pattern of ablation. Surface and in-depth temperatures during ablation were measured by using optical pyrometers and thermocouples. The experimental results showed that the C/C composite presented the best ablation resistance performance, followed by the hybrid C/C composite, while that of graphite was the worst. It was found that the thermo-mechanical ablation resistance of carbon matrix is equal to that of carbon fibres. The existence of WC not only had a faster intrinsic ablation velocity, but also accelerated the ablation velocity of the carbon fibres and carbon matrix, and significantly improved the ablation velocity of the carbon fibres.