LAUSR

Abstract A new ultra-high temperature ceramic foam was developed with carbon foam template and zirconium alloy by adopting melt infiltration in this work. The obtained ZrC foam was highly macro-porous with low density and open cell structure, in which the pore diameter ranged from 400 to 520 μm with a mean value of 465 μm. Microstructural formation mechanism of the ZrC foam by infiltration was analyzed. With an open porosity of 75.38% and a density of 1.35 g/cm 3 , the composite foam possessed a high compressive strength of 26.5 ± 6.28 MPa. Moreover, the thermal conductivity of ZrC foam ranged from 40.411 W m −1  K −1 to 9.102 W m −1  K −1 from ambient to 1200 °C.