Patent 7073476 was granted and assigned to Honda on July, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In a cylinder block, at least one member disposed around a bore is made of a metal matrix composite including a ceramic compact having a three-dimensional mesh structure comprised of a plurality of spherical cells and a plurality of communicating pores for allowing adjacent spherical cells to communicate with each other, with the plurality of spherical cells filled with a metal.