UHTC composites for hypersonic applications

A dream for many scientists, engineers and sci-fi enthusiasts is of an aerospace vehicle that can take off from an airport, fly through the atmosphere and travel to the other side of the earth at hypersonic speeds, and then return through the atmosphere to the same or another airport. Thanks to programs like DARPA’s Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 program (Figure 1), the dream is taking form

Screw dislocation assisted spontaneous growth of HfB2 tubes and rods

The mechanism of anisotropic growth of HfB2 rods has been discussed in this study. HfB2 powder has been synthesized via a sol–gel-based route using phenolic resin, hafnium chloride, and boric acid as the source of carbon, hafnium, and boron respectively, though a small number of comparative experiments involved amorphous boron as the boron source. The effects of calcination dwell time and Hf:C and Hf:B molar ratio on the purity and morphology of the final powder have been studied and the mechanism of anisotropic growth of HfB2 has been investigated. It is hypothesized that imperfect oriented attachment of finer HfB2 particles results in screw dislocations in the coarser particles. The screw dislocation facilitates dislocation-driven growth of particles into anisotropic HfB2 rods