The mortise and tenon structure enabling lamellar carbon composites of ultra-high bending strength

doi:10.1016/j.jmst.2022.03.030

Abstract

Abstract:

Carbon materials are important but find little application in bending components due to their unsatisfying bending strength (300-500 MPa). To fabricate carbon composites of high bending strength is a tough task, even using carbon fibers (CFs) structures as reinforcements. Here we report lamellar carbon composites of ultra-high bending strength (> 1.2 GPa) produced from CFs cloths coated with nano-diamond (ND) particles by spark plasma sintering (SPS). When NDs are sandwiched between CFs cloths, some ND particles penetrate into interstices between CFs. During the sintering, the ND particles are transformed into graphite onions; this transformation is associated with an active state of carbon atoms participating in the change. As a result, the carbon onions strongly bond the CFs together, helping consolidate the compacts into strong lamellar carbon composite bulks. The produced graphite onions from the NDs located at crossings of CFs tows form a robust mortise and tenon structure, which helps the bending strength of the lamellar composite from the compact of 40 wt.% NDs exceed 1.2 GPa. The as-prepared composite possesses the highest specific bending strength of all current high temperature structural materials reported so far. This work may pave a new way for high performance carbon materials.

Key words: Carbon fibers (CFs), Diamond, Carbon composite, Strength

Zhaojun Li, Kunpeng Lin, Hailiang Fang, HuiYu , Junzhuo Wang, Yimin Miao, Lianjun Wang, Jianlin Li, Wan Jiang. The mortise and tenon structure enabling lamellar carbon composites of ultra-high bending strength[J]. J. Mater. Sci. Technol., 2023, 133: 249-258.

Figures/Tables 11

Fig. 1. Schematic of the fabrication process of LBs.

Fig. 2. FESEM micrographs of CFs of LBs before (left column) and after sintering (right column). (a, b) LB-35, (c, d) LB-40, (e, f) LB-45, and (g, h) LB-50.

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram (top view) of layered LB bulks with a “mortise and tenon-like structure”. The crossings of the CF tows in the composite performs act as mortise, where the graphite nano onions derived from the NDs are sintered to be strong “tenons”. Such a structure bestows the LBs with robust resistance to delamination between the layers of LBs when subject to shear stress. Here nano graphite onions are green colored while CFs purple.

Fig. 4. Densities of LBs and carbon/CF composites in other reports. The black square dots represent the bulk densities of LBs composites with different matrix volume contents, and correspond to samples LB-35, LB-40, LB-45 and LB-50 (from left to right). The values marked with red dots represent the bulk density of carbon/CF composites in other reports.

Fig. 5. XRD patterns (a) and Raman spectra (b) of LBs from preforms with different ND contents.

Fig. 6. TEM (a) and HRTEM (b-d) images of LB-40.

Fig. 7. The XPS wide scan spectra of treated-CF and LB-40 before and after sintering (a), C1s peak spectra of treated-CF (b) and LB-40 before (c) and after (d) sintering.

Table 1. The results of C1s peak by curve fitting method.

Peak	Treated-CF		Before sintering		After sintered
Peak	Binding energy (eV)	Peak ratio (%)	Binding energy (eV)	Peak ratio (%)	Binding energy (eV)	Peak ratio (%)
sp²	284.2	53.4	284.5	28.10	284.3	50.20
sp³	284.6	13.3	285.2	51.58	285.1	22.70
C-O	286	28.0	286.3	17.56	286.1	19.22
C=O	288.4	6.65	288.2	2.76	288.1	5.29
π-π	/		/		291	2.58

Fig. 8. Bending strength (a) and the load-displacement curves for three-point bending test (b) of the LBs; and FESEM micrographs showing fracture morphologies of (c) LB-35, (d) LB-40, (e) LB-45, and (f) LB-50.

Fig. 9. The ILSS of LBs with different ND contents.

Table 2. Specific strengths of principal structural materials and LB-40.

Materials	Density, ρ (g cm⁻³)	Bending strength, σ ( GPa)	Specific strength, σ/ρ / (GPa/(g cm⁻³))	Refs.
ZrO₂ (TZ-3Y)	6.07	1.70	0.28	[38,39]
AlN-Y₂O₃	3.50	0.90	0.26
Si₃N₄	3.2-3.3	0.99	0.3-0.31
Al₂O₃-SiC	3.75	0.91	0.24
SiC	3.15-3.2	0.6-1.0	0.19-0.31
SiC/CF	1.7-3.2	0.18-0.70	0.11-0.22	[40], [41], [42]
Carbon/CF	∼1.7	0.20-0.80	0.12-0.47	[9,10,17]
Resin/CF	∼1.7	∼1.73	∼1.02	[43]
LB-40	1.49	1.20	0.81	This work

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