Patent ID: 8852732

Claim:
A method of making a fiber-reinforced composite article, the method comprising: providing a pre-polymerized fiber-containing material comprising fibers in contact with a combination of a monomer and polymerization catalyst, wherein the fibers have been treated with a coupling-initiator compound and the coupling-initiator compound has the formula: S—X—(I) n wherein n is an integer having a value between 1 and 5, S comprises a silicon-containing coupling moiety through which the coupling-initiator compound bonds to a substrate surface on the fibers, X comprises a linking moiety to link the S moiety with the one or more I moieties, and (I) n comprises one or more polymerization initiator moieties, wherein each of the initiators moieties is capable of initiating a polymerization of the monomer at the polymerization temperature, and wherein each of the initiator moieties is the same or different; applying the pre-polymerized fiber-containing material to an article template; subsequently adding more of the monomer to the article template; and heating the pre-polymerized fiber-containing material to a polymerization temperature where the monomers polymerize around the fibers to form at least a portion of the composite article, wherein the fiber-reinforced composite is bonded to one or more surfaces of the article template such that the composite article formed includes an outer layer comprising at least a portion of the article template within the layer structure.