Ultra-High Temperature Carbide and Nitride Ceramics for Extreme Thermal Environments
This research community develops advanced ceramic materials and composites designed to withstand extreme temperatures, oxidation, and ablation, primarily for aerospace and high-heat industrial applications.
The work centers on synthesizing and characterizing carbide and nitride ceramics, with boron carbide, silicon nitride, and silicon carbide appearing most frequently. Key processing methods include spark plasma sintering and plasma sintering, which are used to achieve dense microstructures with specific mechanical and thermal properties. A significant portion of the research focuses on improving oxidation resistance and ablation resistance, often through the development of multicomponent coatings and matrix composites. Recent efforts also explore additive manufacturing techniques and the integration of these ceramics with carbon fibers to enhance structural performance under thermal stress.
The community is most prominent in research involving boron, silicon, and hafnium, representing 3.4%, 3.2%, and 3.6% of all tracked research for those elements, respectively. Boron also contributes the highest paper count within this group, with 1,419 papers.
The community comprises 10,268 papers, published primarily in Ceramics International, the Journal of the American Ceramic Society, and the Journal of the European Ceramic Society.
Recent work includes engineering pore sizes in silicon carbide membranes for corrosion resistance, developing ablation-resistant silicone-modified resins, and expanding the range of ultra-high temperature ceramics to service temperatures exceeding 3000 °C.