Development of vapor grown carbon fibers (VGCF) reinforced carbon/carbon composites

C/C composites are developed using vapor grown carbon fibers (VGCF) with two types of pitches as matrix precursor. The composites are carbonized at 1000◦C by applying the isostatic pressure throughout the carbonization process and further heat treated at different temperatures up to 2500◦C in the inert atmosphere. By applying iso-static pressure one can able to developed VGCF based C/C composites possessing the very high bulk density (1.80 g/cm3) and apparent density (2.01 g/cm3) only by heat treatment up to 2500◦C without any densification cycle. This high value of density is due to the extremely strong fiber-matrix interactions and self sintering between the VGCF fibers during carbonization process under iso-static pressure. From the SEM study it reveals that, fiber-matrix interactions are strong and fiber boundaries merges with each other, also there is not a evidence of matrix shrinkage cracks in case 1500◦C heat treated composites. On the other hand, in 2500◦C heat treated composites, there is evidence of uniform fiber-matrix interfacial cracks and porosity in nanometer dimensions. This is due to the change in fiber morphology above HTT 1500◦C. But the formation of nano width cracks does not affect on the mechanical properties of composites. The compressive strength increases from 95MPa of 1500◦C to 105 MPa of 2500◦C heat treated composites. However, hardness decreases due to the increase in the degree of graphitization of composites on 2500◦C. The study reveals that by controlling processing condition and the uniform dispersion of VGCF fibers in the matrix phase, it can be possible to developed nano porosity at fiber-matrix interface. C 2006 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.