Evaluating Process Routes for Producing Ceramic Composites

Ceramic composites have become essential materials for components of turbine engines, hypersonic vehicles, and even fuel cells and nuclear reactors. Fiber reinforcement mitigates the brittle nature of ceramics, but composite processing generally requires long process cycles at high temperatures to reduce porosity and to fuse refractory constituents. Often the process routes involve multiple and sometimes iterative steps, increasing costs, process cycles, and risk of defects. For the past decade, USC’s Composites Center has worked with industrial partners to address these challenges. These process routes will be described, along with the basic concepts underpinning the approaches employed, and some of the challenges faced.
Presented By Dr. Steve Nutt
Steven Nutt is the M.C. Gill Professor of Materials Science and founding Director of the M.C. Gill Composites Center. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Materials Science from the University of Virginia in 1982, after which he worked at NIST as an NRC Postdoctoral Fellow. He spent eight years as a faculty member at Brown University before joining USC in 1994. Prof. Nutt’s research focuses on processing and manufacture of composite materials, particularly for aerospace applications. A distinguishing feature of his research is the use of in situ process diagnostics to provide insights into process phenomena and to eliminate defects. More recent work has addressed processing of ceramic composites and control of microstructure. He is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society, and he has served as Vice Dean of Research, Department Chair, and Director for the Center for Nano-Imaging.