• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.331-339
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• 2021

Environmental barrier coatings(EBCs) are applied to the SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites(CMCs) in order to protect CMCs from being corroded with water vapor by combustion gas in gas turbine engines. Ytterbium silicates, such as ytterbium monosilicate and ytterbium disilicate, are ones of the candidate materials for EBCs due to their excellent resistance to water vapor corrosion as well as thermal-expansion match with SiC. In this study, ytterbium silicates are fabricated with 2-step solid-state synthesis targeting ytterbium disilicate. After synthesizing ytterbium monosilicate, the mixtures of ytterbium monosilicate and SiO₂ are heat-treated and densified by using pressureless sintering or hot pressing with a variety of heating conditions. The phase formation, thermal expansion, and oxidation behavior are examined with fabricated specimens. The final densified bodies are found to be composites between ytterbium monosilicate and ytterbium disilicate with different ratios, which results in 4.43 to 6.72×10^-6/K range of coefficients of thermal expansion. The probability of these ytterbium silicates for EBC applications is also discussed.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.437-443
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• 2017

SiC-based composite materials with light weight, high durability, and high-temperature stability have been actively studied for use in aerospace and defense applications. Moreover, environmental barrier coating (EBC) technologies using oxide-based ceramic materials have been studied to prevent chemical deterioration at a high temperature of $1300^{\circ}C$ or higher. In this study, an ytterbium silicate material, which has recently been actively studied as an environmental barrier coating because of its high-temperature chemical stability, is fabricated on a sintered SiC substrate. $Yb_2O_3$ and $SiO_2$ are used as the raw starting materials to form ytterbium disilicate ($Yb_2Si_2O_7$). Suspension plasma spraying is applied as the coating method. The effect of the mixing method on the particle size and distribution, which affect the coating formation behavior, is investigated using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. It is found that the originally designed compounds are not effectively formed because of the refinement and vaporization of the raw material particles, i.e., $SiO_2$, and the formation of a porous coating structure. By changing the coating parameters such as the deposition distance, it is found that a denser coating structure can be formed at a closer deposition distance.

• Composites Research
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.84-93
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• 2017

This study investigates thermal and mechanical characterization of environmental barrier coating on the $SiC_f-SiC$ composites. The spherical environmental barrier coating (EBC) powders are prepared using a spray drying process for flowing easily during coating process. The powders consisting of mullite and 12 wt% of Ytterbium silicate are air plasma sprayed on the Si bondcoat on the LSI SiC fiber reinforced SiC composite substrate for protecting the composites from oxidation and water vapor reaction. We vary the process parameter of spray distance during air plasma spray of powders, 100, 120 and 140 mm. After that, we performed the thermal durability tests by thermal annealing test at $1100^{\circ}C$ for 100hr and thermal shock test from $1200^{\circ}C$ for 3000 cycles. As a result, the interface delamination of EBC never occur during thermal durability tests while stable cracks are prominent on the coating layer. The crack density and crack length depend on the spray distance during coating. The post indentation test indicates thermal tests influence on the indentation load-displacement mechanical behavior.