Carbon Nanofibers Reinforced Ceramic Matrix Composites

Modern ceramic materials have, thanks to their crystallographic structure and strong atomic bonds, many excellent properties, such as extremely high hardness, strength, high thermal and chemical stability, high corrosion resistance, and wear resistance. Their weakness is low fracture toughness and crack growth resistance and hence high brittleness and lower reliability. One of the ways how to overcome these drawbacks is preparation of composite materials, where the base ceramic matrix is reinforced by secondary phases in forms of particles/whiskers and in recent years increasingly in a form of fibrous structures. In advanced fine grained ceramics these usually take form of nanofibers and/or nanotubes. Among the most promising candidates are carbon-based filamentous nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and also carbon nanofibers (CNFs), which attracted a lot of attention due to their outstanding mechanical properties, excellent thermal performance and useful electrical characteristics (high electrical conductivity). Nowadays, new ceramic/carbon nanotube composites are being developed mostly with two aims: to improve the mechanical properties of the ceramic materials by reinforcing with carbon nanofibers and to develop functionalized ceramics with improved magnetic and electric properties. Studies show that CNTs (both single-wall and multi-wall) should be ideal reinforcing/functionalizing elements for composites due to their small size, low density and good electrical and thermal conductivity. This work focuses on investigations of ceramic matrix composites based on alumina, zirconia and silicon nitride reinforced by carbon nanofibers and nanotubes. The basic characteristics of commercially available nanofibers/nanotubes are studied by various techniques. The chapter then focuses on mechanical properties of reference monolithic and experimental composite materials. The effect of volume fraction of carbon nanofibers on hardness and fracture toughness is illustrated. Further, the possibilities of improving the tribological and wear properties are discussed. The chapter concludes with the section that explores important aspect of functionalization of ceramics composites by improving their electrical properties, namely electrical conductivity.

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