Because C / C composites have the advantages of high strength, ablation resistance, low thermal conductivity, low density, and little sensitivity to thermal shock and mechanical shock, C / C composites can be used as ablation and insulation materials for spacecrafts, such as Engine shell, aircraft skin and wings, etc .; can be used as structural materials too, such as support beams, seals and so on. Using it as engine throat lining material can greatly reduce the weight of the throat lining, do not need to design a special insulation and complex fixed and support parts, not only simplifies the structure of the throat lining, but also help to improve the reliability of the system .
The rocket engine nozzle is the key components which can turn heat energy from generator into kinetic energy. Nozzle material must withstand the following test: 2000C-3500C high temperature; hot surface of the ultra-high-speed heating thermal shock; high thermal gradient caused by thermal stress; high pressure; long time in high-speed corrosive gas exposure. C / C composites are ideal corrosion resistant materials for the manufacture of solid rocket engine nozzles.
As the changes of throat diameter of the engine affect the performance greatly, we usually use the best corrosion resistance materia. The C / C composite has a low thermal conductivity and can be used as a throat lining. It is less likely to form a thick Al2O3 deposit than a tungsten-impregnated copper-lined throat, which has the advantages of low deposition and high efficiency. Similar to the properties of graphite, the mechanical strength of C / C composites increases with increasing temperature, and the strength of C / C composites is the highest when the temperature rises to 1930C-2480C. Graphite materials, because of poor performance of thermal shock resistance , usually used only in engines with less working hours and medium-sized engineer, C / C composites have no such worries.
Solid rocket engine shell is the combustion chamber, the ablation layer and insulation layer design is one of the key issues. High-temperature performance of synthetic graphite materials, has good high temperature stability, light weight, but has poor mechanical properties, often also need to use steel and aluminum materials to support for high temperature protection, which will further increase the weight of the pipe. In recent years, the research and application of high strength carbon fiber to prepare the shell of the Rocket Engine made of reinforced plastic has received extensive attention. C / C composite has the advantage of strength / less weight, which can greatly improve the Rocket Engine Shell Body performance.
Application limitations
As C / C composite design and manufacturing technology, quality testing and control technology is complex, high costs, its production and application are subject to many restrictions:
1) Carbon fiber is the main component of C / C composites. The manufacturing technology and products of high-performance carbon fiber and its precursors are also blocked as strategic resources in the hands of a few technologically advanced countries.
2) The design and manufacture of C / C composites is difficult, carbon fiber has the physical properties of the opposite performance on different directions, how to arrange carbon fiber layout to adapt to the characteristics of the use of structural components, how to explore the potential of the material, becomes a complex and sophisticated work, some components with carbon fiber Reinforced resin, the arrangement of fiber layers to thousands of carbon fiber arrangement of the way, the performance of the binder, the amount of uniformity and so on, directly affect the quality of C / C composite structure, in such a number of multi-layer Any blistering in the C / C composites will cause undesirable effects.
3) C / C composites is a brittle material, its thermal expansion properties and metal are significantly different. C / C composite parts and other components of the link is different from the conventional metal parts using the bolts and nuts connections, to ensure effective connection between the various components is very important.
The application prospect of C / C composites is very attractive, but there are still many problems to be solved in the application of rocket engine components.
Our factory of carbon composite is government owned. We have set up a research and development team, some of which has more than 45 years of research experience in research institute of China in the carbon composite material field, vigorously carried out application research and secondary development of special military technologies and focused on solving low-cost preparation and batch production problems of products. We have the leading advantages of the strongest domestic technical strength, the best employees, the largest equipment number, the strongest productivity, and the most complete detection facilities.