Abstract Scope |
Owing to their high melting points and ability to resist extreme thermal stresses, ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are important materials for critical applications, such as hypersonic flights, space re-entry vehicles, and rocket engines. Traditional manufacturing processes restrict the freedom to manufacture UHTCs with complex geometries due to the limitations of die and mold designs. Electron beam melting (EBM) is an established powder-bed layer-by-layer additive manufacturing (AM) process for metal parts. In this research, an effort has been made to EBM-process UHTC-based materials, and to investigate the microstructures of the fabricated materials under different processing conditions.
For EBM fabrication of ZrB2- 30 vol% ZrSi2 composites, the optimal processing parameters has been simulated with a mathematical model. The results have been compared with experimental observations to valid the results and to obtain the optimized processing condition. This study demonstrates the capability for AM of UHTCs with complex geometries by the EBM technique. |