Temperature resistance and weight reduction are aspects of interest for civil and military applications nowadays, have increased demand for new materials, designs, structures, processes or standards that improve material performance. Parts of aircraft, both airplanes and helicopters, especially close to the engine, need to yield the necessary temperature resistance, weight and structural characteristics. In particular, the resistance to high temperatures is an important feature for use in specific environments or for components that need to withstand high thermal loads due to their functionality. At the same time, future materials and structural solutions should exhibit low weight and keep the same material performances necessary for specific defence applications.

The present study introduces cenospheres for use as filler material in syntactic foams as lightweight filler, which have been surface coated by means physical vapour deposition (PVD), namely vibration-assisted sputter coating using a magnetron sputtering system. Altogether four types of such cenosphere-based composite powders with an original particle size range of 63-150 µm were studied. Surface films deposited on these were composed of Cu, stainless steel (SS), and Ti. The paper gives an overview of the obtained composites’ main properties, which is characterised by low density from 0.9 to 1,5 g·cm-3 and compression strength up to 75 MPa.