The temperature distribution of glass fiber-reinforced epoxy flat plates coated with a thin oxy-acetylene flame-sprayed aluminum-12silicon coating was determined experimentally. The composite plates were fabricated by filament winding. Following winding, but prior to and during curing, garnet sand was uniformly distributed on the glass fiber-reinforced epoxy plate surface. The sand roughened the surface such that there was adhesion of the aluminum-12silicon particles to the surface. A resistive heating wire was attached to the coated surface. Thermocouples were attached to the composite and coating surfaces to measure transient and spatial surface temperature distributions. The spatial temperature of the coating and polymer surfaces decayed uniformly throughout the coating-composite ensemble from the heating wire. It was also observed that the coating served to increase the surface temperature of the coating-polymer system compared to uncoated samples. This was attributed to the large thermal conductivity of the metal coating and the low thickness of the samples.

Alumina matrix composites reinforced with metal thin wire (Inconel-600) were successfully fabricated by plasma spray forming. The atmospheric plasma sprayed matrix layers and wire layers arranged by filament-winding technique were piled up alternately. Though the matrix and the wire were partially bonded only on the side which sprayed particles came flying to, a solid structure was obtained by this technique. Spraying in one direction perpendicular to the substrate made peculiar V-shape pores around the wires, but tilting the torch was effective to reduce the pores. The flexural strength of composite did not increase in spite of some crack deflections on the fracture surface. Owing to the wire pullout, however, the composite exhibited a remarkably higher apparent fracture energy than that of monolithic alumina ceramics.