Award

The mission of the work presented in this proposal is to develop a novel, stable, domestic process for manufacturing shaped, silicon carbide fibers in a timely and cost effective manner for advanced ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) intended for use in hypersonic applications. The goal is to understand how the processing parameters affect the fiber properties and to develop the process controls needed to govern the fiber properties. Free Form Fibers (FFF) proposes to demonstrate laser-induced chemical vapor deposition (LCVD) as this novel process. LCVD is a material-agnostic, additive manufacturing process capable of producing high-purity material in fiber form, and is easily adaptable to large-scale manufacturing. The process offers high-fidelity control over processing parameters that can control material compositions and fiber geometry including varying diameters. For this proposal, short silicon carbide fibers of varying compositions and shape will be produced, characterized, and down- selected for large-scale production based on their high-temperature and high-strength performance. Large-scale production will be performed on a tool built for this purpose under this award. These fibers will be converted into a non-woven architecture and then processed into SiC/SiC CMCs coupons for mechanical testing and high-temperature conditions simulating hypersonic applications.