Experimental and Modeling Studies on the Chemical Vapor Infiltration with Respect to the Effects of Thermal Gradient and Other Operating Parameters

Abstract

Effects of operating parameters in the thermal gradient chemical vapor infiltration of propane such as thermal gradient, diffusion, infiltrations time, and concentration of propane were studied by focusing on the visualizations of the intrinsic effects of these parameters. A uniform deposition in the preform was obtained with a gradually increasing temperature along the gas flow. The uniformity of deposition through the preform got improved with increasing deposition time. Results of numerical modeling estimated the experimental data very well when the pre-exponential factor of the overall rate of carbon deposition from propane reported by Vaidyaraman([1]) was multiplied by 4. The average density of a preform increased by about 3 times from 0.38 to 1.15 g/cm(3) after 60 hr deposition with a thermal gradient under the conditions of 3% propane in nitrogen and 840 to 900 degrees C.