Glass or ceramic plate reinforced with fibrous or flaky material and

Abstract

A glass or ceramic plate, which may be foamed glass or ceramic plate, is reinforced by incorporating therein a thin reinforcement layer in which fibrous or flaky pieces of an inorganic heat-resistant reinforcing material such as, e.g., steel wire pieces 3 to 50 mm in length are scattered so as to be two-dimensionally randomly oriented. The reinforcement layer is parallel to two opposite major surfaces of the plate, and this layer is either a buried layer or a surface layer. The plate may have a plurality of reinforcement layers which are distant from each other. In any case the reinforcing material exists only in the reinforcement layer(s). The glass or ceramic plate can be produced by the steps of layering a particulate material of the glass or ceramic on a conveyor belt made of a heat-resistant material, scattering fibrous or flaky pieces of a reinforcing material on the surface of the layer of the particulate material, overlaying that surface with the particulate material if need be, and firing the material on the conveyor belt in a furnace. =