Reaction-bonded SiC derived from resin precursors by Stereolithography

A photo-curable resin with a high carbon yield after pyrolysis was developed in the present research. It consisted of phenolic epoxy acrylate resin, phenolic resin, triethylene glycol as pore forming agent and benzoin dimethyl ether as photoinitiator. The well-prepared mixed resin was used by Stereolithograpy to form resin prototypes. The influence of mixed resin composition on the process parameters was studied to meet the requirement for the cured thickness. Carbon preforms with open porosity of 27% and bending strength of 4.48 MPa were obtained after pyrolyzing the resin prototypes. After molten silicon infiltration at the temperature 2300° C, the carbon preform converted to reaction-bonded SiC. The maximum bending strength of the produced SiC samples was 127.8 ± 0.5 MPa as the pore forming agent content was 40 wt.%. Neither residual carbon nor silicon remained in the reaction-bonded SiC sample according to the XRD analysis.