the extent of fiber pullout indicates a tough composite both of these results showed that the process of infiltrating the partially infiltrated pip composites with cvi sic did not affect the strength or toughness of the composites fig4 presents a sem micrograph of a polished section of the first composite labeled green body after the cvi process the lighter area of the matrix shown in the micrograph has been attributed to cvi deposited sic the sic can be seen enveloping the outside of the composite indicating the composite was u201c canned off u201d during the cvi process this canning off process prevents additional sic from infiltrating into the composite and filling up the remaining porosity this is a common occurrence in the cvi process and can be minimized by reducing the deposition rate even though the composite was canned off during the cvi process a considerable amount of opened porosity was filled in with sic fig5 presents a sem micrograph of a pip cvi composite the lighter areas around the fiber show the cvi sic infiltrating through an open pore and around the fibers as is desired in summary the ability to fabricate ceramic matrix composites using the pip cvi process was demonstrated several different pip composites were fabricated to various densities these composites were then infiltrated in a cvi process with sic to a final density of around 2 1 g cm 3 four point bend testing showed that the strength of the composite was not affected by the cvi process sem fractographs of the composites after testing.