Materials Processing
Busek offers bonding and brazing services for silicon carbide and other nonoxide ceramics. These processes allow the production of engineered parts from simple shapes, at low cost. Busek has developed bonding processes suitable for many of the major types of bulk and composite silicon carbide, Carborundum, Norton Saint Gobain, INEX, Morton International, Tenmat, Silicon Carbide Products, and Coors Ceramics.
Busek’s bonded and brazed products have been used to produce high temperature probes, heat exchangers and process tubes for industrial applications.
Reaction Bonding
The reaction joining process produces silicon carbide bonds between components. The parts are coated with a carbon-silicon spray on mating surfaces. The parts are assembled and heated to the melting point of silicon, 1400°C. The carbon and silicon between the parts react to form dense silicon carbide.
Control over the composition, atmosphere, pressure, and the reaction-infiltration temperature allow production of high density, low residual silicon bonds.
400X micrograph of SiC joint
Tube to Plate bonds provide sealing surfaces
Vacuum Brazing
Busek produces joints between silicon carbide and metallic components. After cleaning the parts and pre-treating the ceramic, a metal foil is placed between components to be brazed. Once melted, the foil wets the ceramic and the metal, forming a joint upon cooling.
Busek’s brazed samples were tested at Oak Ridge National Lab, where strengths were evaluated versus temperature, up to 850°C. This data confirmed our modeling results.
400X micrograph of SiC metal interface
SiC to metal braze. Modules are leak tight after 600°C cycling.
Joining Capabilities
Busek has invested time and resources to produce bonds in industrially relevant geometries. One development enables us to produce bonds between tubes of any length. The Busek designed tube bonding tool incorporates all of the features needed to produce dense joints.
Busek developed a furnace-based method for bonding non tubular components. Busek’s mix of technology and modeling enables us to produce objects that are not manufacture-able by other methods.
This unit joins tubes up to 2 1/2" diameter
AlgorTM FE Modeling lets us control stresses
Other Activities
Busek’s other materials activities include deposition of coatings by ion beam deposition, sputtering, and by other methods. We have on-going development programs investigating DLC coating, the growth of carbon nanotubes, and other materials.
