Interfacial Structure of Carbide-Coated Graphite/Al Composites and Its Effect on Thermal Conductivity and Strength

• Published in: Materials Vol. 14; no. 7; p. 1721
• Main Authors: Jia, Hao, Fan, Jianzhong, Liu, Yanqiang, Zhao, Yuehong, Nie, Junhui, Wei, Shaohua
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 31.03.2021; MDPI
• Subjects: Al matrix composites; carbide coating; Carbon; Composite materials; Graphite; Heat conductivity; Heat transfer; Hot isostatic pressing; Hot pressing; interfaces; Interfacial bonding; Mechanical properties; Microstructure; Morphology; Raw materials; Silicon carbide; Thermal conductivity; Thermal management; Thermodynamic properties; Titanium; Titanium carbide; Wettability; China; Japan; Germany; interfaces; thermal conductivity; Al matrix composites; carbide coating
• ISSN: 1996-1944; 1996-1944
• DOI: 10.3390/ma14071721

Graphite/Al composites had attracted significant attention for thermal management applications due to their excellent thermal properties. However, the improvement of thermal properties was restricted by the insufficient wettability between graphite and Al. In this study, silicon carbide and titanium carbide coatings have been uniformly coated on the graphite by the reactive sputtering method, and Graphite/Al laminate composites were fabricated by a hot isostatic pressing process to investigate the influence on thermal conductivity and mechanical properties. The results show that carbide coating can effectively improve the interfacial thermal conductance of SiC@Graphite/Al and TiC@Graphite/Al composites by 9.8 times and 3.4 times, respectively. After surface modification, the in-plane thermal conductivity (TC) of the composites with different volume fractions are all exceeding the 90% of the predictions. In comparison, SiC is more conducive to improving the thermal conductivity of composite materials, since the thermal conductivity of the 28.7 vol.% SiC@Graphite/Al reached the highest value of 499 W/m·K, while TiC is favorable for improving the mechanical properties. The finding is beneficial to the understanding of carbide coating engineering in the Graphite/Al composites.