Improved oxidation resistance of chemical vapor reaction SiC coating modified with silica for carbon/carbon composites

To protect carbon/carbon (C/C) composites from oxidation, a SiC coating modified with SiO2 was prepared by a complex technology. The inner SiC coating with thickness varying from 150 to 300 µm was initially coated by chemical vapor reaction (CVR): a simple and cheap technique to prepare the SiC coating via siliconizing the substrate that was exposed to the mixed vapor (Si and SiO2) at high temperatures (1 923–2 273 K). Then the as-prepared coating was processed by a dipping and drying procedure with tetraethoxysilane as source materials to form SiO2 to fill the cracks and holes. Oxidation tests show that, after oxidation in air at 1 623 K for 10 h and thermal cycling between 1 623 K and room temperature 5 times, the mass loss of the CVR coated sample is up to 18.21%, while the sample coated with modified coating is only 5.96%, exhibiting an obvious improvement of oxidation and thermal shock resistance of the coating. The mass loss of the modified sample is mainly contributed to the reaction of C/C substrate with oxygen diffusing through the penetrating cracks formed in thermal shock tests.