Construction of continuous heat conductive channel, a double harvest strategy to enhance thermal conductance and bending strength of C/SiC composites

Abstract The development of efficient and quick method to prepare structure-function integrative C/SiC composites is always a major challenge in this field. Herein, the thermal conductivity and bending strength of C/SiC composites were enhanced simultaneously via continuous high heat conductive channels constructed by continuous wave laser machining and pitch-based high thermal conductivity carbon fiber in thickness direction. Results revealed that the thermal conductivity of the modified C/SiC composites is three times higher than that of referential C/SiC composites due to its highly ordered heat conducive channel in the thickness direction. Importantly, the bending strength of modified C/SiC composites increased to 457 MPa. To better understand the enhance mechanism, the micro-structure for both the composites and heat conductive channel was systematically analyzed. The results demonstrated that the rivet effect of heat conductive channel and the formed two phases structure on the fibers dispersed partial of load and finally enhanced the property of the composites. In a word, this method holds a nice applicable future in constructing structure-function integrative C/SiC composites.