Steve, That statement is incorrect. CERMET is the name given to several types of  ceramic metal matrix. My father was a specialist in ceramics and ceramic-metalizing so I saw many trade types of cermet products. The idea of this matrix is that the metal stabilizes the compound to make the ceramic less prone to fracture. I believe an entire sideplate could be made of this material, but it would be costly. Due to surrface hardness it must usually be diamond ground. The article speaks of "spraying" the material. This would only be possible with plasma spraying, and woould be very propriatiry since the ceramic portion of the matrix wouldn't melt unless they sprayed at more than 3000 degrees! Honda made cylinder barrels for the RC45 V-4 750 from cermet. Cermet is supposed to be about the same weight as aluminum, but has a very hard surface after being finish ground. Most materials I have seen list a Coeficient of linear expansion at around     1.5 x 10^ -6 (one point five times ten to the minus sixth) units per degree F. Aluminum CoLE is about 2 x 10^ -5 there is a lot of built up stress at the skin of a coating with tht much of a difference in expansion. If they guys doing the rotor housings are doing a type of chrome and calling the result cermet then they are being misleading.

Bill Jepson  

 

In a message dated 10/22/2007 7:48:15 PM Pacific Standard Time, steve@stevet.net writes: