Polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs) which are fabricated through pyrolysis of preceramic polymers have attracted increasing attention due to their versatility in structure architecture design and property tailoring. Shaping at the polymer state using 3D printing allows the final ceramic products to exhibit arbitrary shapes and complex architectures that are otherwise impossible to achieve through traditional processing routes. The polymer-to-ceramic phase transition also provides additional space for mechanical property tailoring. A multiscale computational model is developed to explore the phase transition mechanisms and their correlations with processing parameters and failure response. Calculations in this work concern PMHS/DVB preceramic polymers. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are carried out first to track the atomic structure evolution at different temperatures. Continuum-scale ceramic phase formation is calculated on the basis of the competition between gas generation and gas diffusion. The effect of processing parameters on mechanical properties of pyrolyzed PMHS/DVB is systematically studied. Conclusions from this study can provide direct guidance for fabricating PDC composites with tailored mechanical properties.
Phase transition in Polymer Derived Ceramics (PDCs) and its effect on mechanical response
Polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs) which are fabricated through pyrolysis of preceramic polymers have attracted increasing attention due to their versatility in structure architecture design and property tailoring. Shaping at the polymer state using 3D printing allows the final ceramic products to exhibit arbitrary shapes and complex architectures that are otherwise impossible to achieve through traditional processing routes. The polymer-to-ceramic phase transition also provides additional space for mechanical property tailoring. A multiscale computational model is developed to explore the phase transition mechanisms and their correlations with processing parameters and mechanical response. Calculations in this work concern PMHS/DVB. Molecular dynamics simulations are carried out first to track the chemical reaction mechanisms and atomic structure evolution. The density of generated gas during pyrolysis is transferred to the finite element model (FEM) for coupled heat transfer and phase transition analysis.
FEM calculations reveal the effect of pyrolysis temperature and heating rate on structure-level phase composition and elastic modulus. It is found that there is a threshold of pyrolysis temperature above which full ceramic phase is formed. Higher heating rate promotes ceramization and leads to higher elastic modulus. In addition, volume shrinkage is found to accelerate ceramic formation which slightly enhances material strength.
- Award ID(s):
- 1757371
- Publication Date:
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10279964
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Methods
- Volume:
- 12
- Page Range or eLocation-ID:
- 1962-1972
- ISSN:
- 2374-3948
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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