Ultra-high temperature (i.e., greater than 2500°C) engineering applications present continued materials challenges. Refractory metal/ceramic composites have great potential to satisfy the demands of extreme environments (e.g., the environments found in solid rocket motors upon ignition), though general scalable processing techniques to fabricate complex shaped parts are lacking. The work embodied in this dissertation advances scientific knowledge in the development of processing techniques to form complex, near net-shape, near net-dimension, near fully-dense refractory metal/ceramic composites with controlled phase contents and microstructure.
Three research thrusts are detailed in this document. First, the utilization of rapid prototyping techniques, such as computer numerical controlled machining and three dimensional printing, for the fabrication of porous tungsten carbide preforms and their application with the Displacive Compensation of Porosity process is demonstrated. Second, carbon substrates and preforms have been reactively converted to porous tungsten/tungsten carbide replicas via a novel gas-solid displacement reaction. Lastly, non-oxide ceramic solid solutions have been internally reduced to create intragranular metal/ceramic micro/nanocomposites. All three techniques combined have the potential to produce nanostructured refractory metal/ceramic composite materials with tailorable microstructure for ultra-high temperature applications.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GATECH/oai:smartech.gatech.edu:1853/43750 |
| Date | 20 December 2010 |
| Creators | Lipke, David William |
| Publisher | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | Georgia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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