Enhanced ablative performance of ZrB₂ bioinspired fiber-aggregated ceramics with a design of dual-interface structure

ZrB2-SiC/BN/ZrB2-SiC dual-interface fiber-aggregated ceramic (DFC) was fabricated by wet-extruding and hot-pressing, then the ablation resistance of the ceramics was investigated by plasma flame with heat flux of 8.2 MW/m(2) for 120 s. After ablation, the DFC remained an intact structure, and had the mass and linear ablation rates of -0.263 mg s(-1) and -0.171 mu m s(-1), respectively. Compared with the catastrophic failure in mono-interface fiber-aggregated ceramics, DFC presented a typical non-ablative behavior during ablation. The enhanced ablation resistance of DFC was attributed to the fast heat transfer channel and continuous dense barrier of SiO2-ZrO2 with low oxygen permeability brought by dual-interface structure.