Abstracts Category : Other

Development of plasma assisted pyrolysis of polymer derived ceramic coatings on sintered steel

by Nilda Martins

Abstract: The use of precursors loaded with fillers to process ceramic coatings rises the possibility to tailor the microstructure and coating properties for a wide range application, like thermal barrier coatings, environmental barrier coating or for wear applications. Thus, the present research aims to develop and to employ the novel process of plasma assisted pyrolysis (PAP) for developing ceramic composites coating on sintered steel substrate. The coatings are based on polymer derived ceramic, being the precursor a polyorganosilazane. During the development of the PDC based coating different fillers were used. The active fillers TiSi2 and TiB2 were used in order to compensate the shrinkage of the precursor and to generate in situ formation of phases as nitrides and carbides. Initially it was necessary to investigate the influence of PAP both on the pyrolysis behavior of the pure precursor and on the polymer precursor loaded with filler particles, in comparison to conventional pyrolysis. For such investigations, cylindrical bulk specimens were used (diameter of 13 mm and thickness between of 2-4 mm). It was demonstrated that the ceramic yield as well as the elemental composition of the polyorganosilazane are not adversely influenced by PAP process. The bulk samples based on precursor and TiSi2 under conventional pyrolysis, under N2 atmosphere, showed no significant conversion of the fillers into nitrides. In contrast, the use of PAP led not only to an enhances filler conversion but also to a densification of the composite. The resulting microstructure is dominated by Ti(C,N) as well as a mixture of a- and - Si3N4 phases embedded in an amorphous SiCN matrix. In the same way the coatings, on sintered substrates, based on polyorganosilazane and TiB2, processed under conventional pyrolysis showed almost no filler conversion up to temperature of 1150 C. The final coating was based mainly on TiB2 and the formed SiCN network. While in the specimens after PAP process mainly Ti (C, N) and C0.858 (BN)0.571 were formed, and no residual TiB2 was detect. The diffusion phenomenon between coating and sintered substrate was also drastically affected under plasma conditions. Considerable amount of iron could be detected in the coating, after the plasma assisted pyrolysis. Such difference between conventional and plasma assisted pyrolysis process is attributed to the high reactivity of the plasma environment, in which reactive species, as atomic nitrogen, are available to react with the sample. It could be demonstrated that plasma assisted pyrolysis is a very suitable way to process polymer derived ceramic composite materialswith a tailored microstructure.; O uso de precursores carregados com fillers possibilita projetar a microestrutura e as propriedades de revestimentos cermicos para diferentes aplicaes, como revestimentos de barreira trmica, revestimento de barreira ambiental ou para aplicaes tribolgicas. O objetivo deste trabalho foi desenvolver e empregar o novo processo de pirlise assistida por plasma (PAP) para oAdvisors/Committee Members: Klein, Aloisio Nelmo (advisor), Motz, Gnter (advisor).