Continuous interface coating for SiC composites (CICSiC)

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Ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) are a vital material for improvement of efficiency in future aircraft engines, enabling higher turbine temperatures and offering the advantages of significantly lower weight, lower cooling requirements and lower aircraft emissions. The rate of introduction of these new materials can be improved by raising the predictability of material strength, enabling design engineers to have a greater degree of confidence in the life of the material.Interface coatings on fibre reinforcements are one of the critical components of CMCs and control of these coatings with tight tolerances is vital for ensuring reliable properties. Current batch coating methods only give a relatively low level of uniformity control. Complex components can show coating thickness variations, limiting the predictability of performance.This 'CICSiC' project aims to develop the coating technology, a novel prototype machine design and a UK based manufacturing partnership for the equipment which will coat the reinforcing silicon carbide (SiC) fibre for SiC based CMCs in a continuous mode. This mode will enable tight coating tolerance by treating the fibre before it is shaped into a thicker and complex shaped component preform where it becomes difficult to process all areas of the component with equal precision.There is significant global demand for this technology amongst customers of ATL (project lead) including engine manufacturers and component developers, as recent developments in the US have enabled GE Aviation to gain a competitive advantage. This project aims to enable technology to be developed and sold to a world market from a UK base. Customers of the planned product are keen to push the development through and understand the properties of the material produced by this new process.The project will take the existing batch coating process and apply knowledge from that to design and build prototype equipment which coats a moving SiC fibre on a continuous basis. Fibre handling expertise will be drawn both from SMEs and a research centre to form a knowledge base from which a production scale multi-tow plant is designed ready for manufacturing at the end of the project. End users of the coated fibre, including the German company now setting up the only SiC fibre plant outside Japan and the US, will form part of the consortium's test regime for the coated fibre to ensure it meets industrial requirements.