The market for advanced ceramics is very large and growing rapidly, at a rate of 20 percent per year. These materials are characterized by their excellent high temperature properties. They are finding use where temperatures exceed the capability of other materials, especially metals. Even so, they are not selected for many applications because of the brittleness of monolithic ceramics. In the search for improvement, material scientists reinforce ceramics with continuous ceramic fibers, such as silicon carbide. Embedded continuous ceramic fibers reinforce the ceramic matrix by deflecting and bridging fractures. These continuous fiber ceramic composite (CFCC) materials offer the advantages of ceramics--resistance to heat, erosion, and corrosion--while adding
toughness and thermal shock resistance. CFCC materials are evolving to the advanced product development stage with Department of Energy support in the CFCC program. Designers are evaluating them in corrosive applications in major industries. Various CFCC’S are described and several case studies of CVI SiC/SiC application testing are reveiwed.