amounts of expansion upon solidification thereby enhancing net shape making capabilities these and other consequences of engineering the metal component of composite bodies made by silicon infiltration permit the fabrication of large structures of complex shape application_number US 201213420449 A description according to the methods of the present invention a porous mass containing at least one reinforcement material and optionally carbon is infiltrated with a molten multi constituent metal containing at least silicon and titanium typically a wetting condition exists or is created between the molten metal and the bodies of material making up the porous mass so that the infiltration can occur by capillarity although at least one of silicon and titanium metal may remain in the formed composite body as for example residual infiltrant material more commonly at least some of the titanium chemically reacts with at least some of the silicon constituent of the infiltrant material to form one or more titanium silicon intermetallic compounds the silicon containing intermetallics e g u201c titanium silicides u201d are distributed throughout the composite body as are the one or more reinforcement materials when the porous mass contains some reactable u201c free u201d carbon the silicon component of the infiltrant may react with this carbon to form silicon carbide this silicon carbide is sometimes referred to as u201c in situ u201d silicon carbide it may be possible to coax the titanium component into also participating in the reaction with carbon if such would be desirable but in a preferred embodiment the titanium constituent hardly participates forming at best only a.