Centrifugal casting method is used for piping shape products, which can be applicable to fabricate functionally graded materials (FGMs). There are two types of the centrifugal casting machine, i.e., horizontal and vertical-types. In our previous study, it was shown that the horizontal machine is a better than the horizontal one to fabricate the pipe shaped FGMs by the reactive centrifugal casting method and centrifugal mixed-powder method. The present study developed a centrifugal casting machine for the FGMs production. A heating furnace and a spinning-casting mold are placed on a steel-frame, and the mold is rotated horizontally by belt drive. Inert gas injection system and washer of damping alloy are used to avoid the oxidation of fine-particles in the mold and to reduce the vibration of machine, respectively. The cooling rate of the materials before and after the solidification is roughly estimated from the resultant lamella structure of the FGMs.

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In a newly developed rod-feeding flame spraying process, solid resin rods containing fine particles were successfully fed into a Rokide® flame gun to deposit thin ceramic layers. In this investigation, alumina particles with average diameters of 1.8 µm or 170 nm were dispersed in liquid acrylic resins. Alumina particles with different sizes were successfully incorporated in the liquid acrylic resins in high volume fractions. The obtained slurries were injected into brass molds, and shaped into solid resin rods. We compare the film from a previous study with the film prepared here, with different particle size diameters. The sprayed alumina particles were collected in a water bath for microtextural observation using scanning electron microscopy and crystal phase analysis by X-ray diffraction.

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