extruder the feedrod 85 was then passed through a heated spinneret 90 reducing the diameter to about 300 microns to yield a filament 98 while maintaining the original geometry of the spiral feedrod 85 the filament 98 was chopped into 1 mm lengths 97 which were then mixed with additional zrb 2 powder 20 in order to form a mixture 110 that contained about 30 volume percent sic this mixture 110 was hot pressed in order to form the final zrb 2 matrix billet 10 containing 30 volume percent sic spirals the amount of second phase material 15 added could vary widely from about 5 to about 95 volume percent the choice of how much of the first phase material 15 is desired to be added to the second phase matrix 20 to produce a desired and advantageous result would depend on the physical property of properties being manipulated for mechanical properties a range of between about 20 and about 40 volume percent would typically be selected for the manipulation of electrical or thermal properties a range of between about 5 and about 25 volume percent would typically be appropriate fig7 a and 7b are photomicrographs illustrating the dispersed first phase spirals 15 in the second phase matrix 20 fig8 a 8d are photomicrographs graphically illustrating the crack propagation deflection and attenuation properties of the composite materials 10 as can be seen crack propagation is blunted by first phase spiral particles 15 with the crack either stopped or redirected fig9 and 10 graphically illustrate the increase in toughness of the composite material 10 over a test material typically the dispersed first phase 15 is characterized by a spiral architecture.