Boron Nitride Nanotubes Grown on Commercial Silicon Carbide Fiber Tow and Fabric

An effective growth of hierarchical BNNTs/SiC fibers with enhanced interfacial properties

“…Furthermore, boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) satisfy the requirements of CMCs in a similar fashion to CNTs in the F/M interface through a high specific surface area and very high thermal stability, high corrosion resistance, and excellent mechanical properties at elevated temperatures [18][19][20]. Hurst et al [21] showed that it is possible to decorate fiber surfaces with BNNTs, and achieved a 2.5 -3 times higher tensile strength for the BNNTs/SiCf composite coupons prepared by the thermal CVD method; however, they did not evaluate their interlaminar shear strength (ILSS), which is crucial for such a hybrid approach. Similarly, Zhu et al [22] prepared SiCf/BNNTs-SiC architectures by growing BNNTs onto SiCf in-situ via ball milling, and while 87.8% of the SiCf/SiC strength was retained at elevated temperature, SiCf/BNNTs-SiC composites showed 94.7% strength retention.…”