Arcam AB fka AMAVF

[Tom Joad]

Predictions are terribly difficult to make. From your link but with focus on a different article,Could composite metal foams give ceramic materials a run for their money?

North Carolina State University (Raleigh, N.C.) professor of
mechanical and aerospace engineering Afsaneh Rabiei has spent
several years studying composite metal foams to better understand
their properties and potential applications.

Composite metal foams consist of hollow spheres encased
within a metallic matrix. So, the materials contain lots of little
air pockets. Rabiei’s work shows that this structure makes the
metal foams “very effective at shielding X-rays, gamma-rays,
and neutron radiation” and able to “handle fire and heat twice
as well as the plain metals they are made of,” according to a
NC State news story.

But the most visual demonstration of the awe of composite
metal foams may come from a video available at youtu.be/
lWmFu-_54fI.

The rewards of ceramic turbine blade development are worth the research as they say lighter weight and heat resistance are superior. The light weight advantage is considerable as density of CMC's being considered for turbine blades is 2.0 to 2.5 g/cm3 and for titanium, the lightest metal in the TiAl alloys, is 4.506 g/cm3. Maybe Arcam can exploit the "hollow sphere problem" in their Ti powder production. Anyway, here's a description of the barriers CMC's have to overcome from

Ceramic matrix composite

Basic mechanism of mechanical properties

The high fracture toughness or crack resistance mentioned above is a result of the following mechanism: under load the ceramic matrix cracks, like any ceramic material, at an elongation of about 0.05%. In CMCs the embedded fibres bridge these cracks (see picture). This mechanism works only when the matrix can slide along the fibres, which means that there must be a weak bond between the fibres and matrix. A strong bond would require a very high elongation capability of the fibre bridging the crack, and would result in a brittle fracture, as with conventional ceramics. The production of CMC material with high crack resistance requires a step to weaken this bond between the fibres and matrix. This is achieved by depositing a thin layer of pyrolytic carbon or boron nitride on the fibres, which weakens the bond at the fibre/matrix interface (sometimes "interface"), leading to the fibre pull-out at crack surfaces, as shown in the SEM picture at the top of this article. In oxide-CMCs, the high porosity of the matrix is sufficient to establish the weak bond.

That description, although I've personally seen a child hammer a disk of CMC into a concrete sidewalk (to the horror of his father) without the disk showing a scratch, doesn't give me a lot of confidence. The test results help, but the image the above description invokes does not. The image in my mind doesn't amount to a hill of pinto beans, but ...

Nobody knows with certainty what will happen in the years to come with these technologies. The research, technology adoption, economic landscape is just too complex. I haven't read the following paper yet but will soon. It seems to describe the development of CMC's well. From 2014-

Development of CMC Turbine Parts for Aero Engines

Timing is important. I think of Clean Energy, the fall of oil prices, and the strides that have been made in electric vehicles that may doom CLNE. But ask me to predict, with certainty, the success or failure of CLNE and I won't.