Creep of chemically vapor deposited SiC fibers

The creep, thermal expansion, and elastic modulus properties for chemically vapor deposited SiC fibers were measured between 1000 and 1500 C. Creep strain was observed to increase logarithmically with time, monotonically with temperature, and linearly with tensile stress up to 600 MPa. The controlling activation energy was 480 + or - 20 kJ/mole. Thermal pretreatments near 1200 and 1450 C were found to significantly reduce fiber creep. These results coupled with creep recovery observations indicate that below 1400 C fiber creep is anelastic with neglible plastic component. This allowed a simple predictive method to be developed for describing fiber total deformation as a function of time, temperature, and stress. Mechanistic analysis of the property data suggests that fiber creep is the result of beta-SiC grain boundary sliding controlled by a small percent of free silicon in the grain boundaries