EVIDENCE OF CRITICAL SCALING BEHAVIOR DURING VAPOR-PHASE SYNTHESIS OFCONTINUOUS FILAMENT COMPOSITES

We present experimental measurements of the accessible pore fraction i n ceramic matrix composites during consolidation by vapor phase infilt ration. For two topologically distinct filament architectures, the acc essible pore fraction decreased during consolidation with a power law decay and a critical scaling exponent of 0.41 (R(2) = 0.97). A three-d imensional analysis of the percolating pores revealed that the structu res became topologically equivalent and simply connected near the crit ical density.