Finite Element Modeling of Thermal Transport in

Composite Unit Cell using ABAQUS/CAE

J. K. Farooqi, M. A. Sheikh
School of Mechanical Aerospace and Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical
Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, M60 1QD, United Kingdom
j.farooqi@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
Abstract: FE modeling strategy for thermal transport behavior of a Woven-Fabric Composite is
sought using ABAQUS/CAE. A Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC) has been chosen as a
convenient subject for this study as adequate physiological morphology and thermo-physical
property data is available for setting up its environment within ABAQUS/STANDARD. Limiting to
a single computing platform and software in contrast to prior studies has been one of the
challenges and met successfully through ABAQUS/CAE. Concept of modeling and analyzing a
unique repetitive Unit Cell in CAE is the key to achieving representative thermal transport
character of a chosen composite. Such sophisticated materials have very complex and expensive
manufacturing routes, limited to just few capable research organizations. This fact broadens the
scope of a modeling study like this since examination of all possible material designs with various
constituent volume fractions can easily be carried out in ABAQUS/CAE with subtle manipulation
of key parameters dictated by quantitative SEM morphological data. Actual set of property data
used in Unit Cell of CMC is calculated after cumulative property degradation results extracted
from models of three observed unique porosities. Finally a comparison with experimental data is
done for establishing the health of complete modeling exercise, one to authenticate the validity of
the above scheme, secondly to open a range of modeling challenges for material designers
handicapped with lack of sophisticated manufacturing facilities. It is hoped that with more effort
in standardization of above strategy, a generic modeling scheme may evolve for virtually all
classes of composites manufactured today.
Keywords: Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC), Damage Characterization, Finite Element
Analysis (FEA), Thermal Transport.

1. Introduction
Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) have been purposefully engineered as per service
requirement because of their capacity to retain the constituent characteristics, i.e. on one hand aid
resistance to hostile thermal and corrosive environment, as in case of aerospace and nuclear
applications, and on the other hand extend superior response to the performance aspect like
structural integrity, dimensional stability etc. Various NASA programs develop materials like
SiC/SiC composite through Chemical Vapor Infiltration (CVI) and Melt Infiltration (MI) for High
Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) engine (Brewer, 1999). CMC materials have known to be

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employed in heat exchangers, industrial furnaces, gas turbines and fluidized bed combustion units.
Other applications include dies and tool bits, medical implants, land-based power and transport
engines, and most importantly nuclear reactors. In the present study, only one of such CMCs has
been modeled with a detailed attention to its physical morphology and thermo-physical character.
The objective is to predict this character by modeling the thermal transport in the presence of
damage history within the constituents of the CMC. Understandably, investigations for
characterization of CMCs have been the least in comparison with Polymer and Metal matrix
composites, since only limited treatment, primarily in defense and aerospace sector of the
developed countries has been possible to date. A traditional alternate adopted by the academic
community is modeling of these materials at micro- and meso-scale to assess their macro thermophysical, mechanical, electrical and chemical character within in the acceptable bounds presented
within published experimental data. Hence on similar lines, the present study involves modeling a
unit cell of CMC to develop a correlation for the constituent materials thermal properties with
that of the macro-scale composite. During this modeling, the morphology of the CMC at microscale has been developed closest to reality by replicating all features observed through SEM
micrographs. ABAQUS/CAE has been used presently for pre-processing, processing as well as
post-processing for this task.
1.1

Material under Investigation

It is a 10 laminate CMC (0/90o) plain weave composite material DLR-XT that has been developed
by the German Aerospace research establishment, Stuttgart, Germany for aerospace applications
involving high-temperature components of gas turbines (Krenkel, 2000). The architecture of DLRXT consists of T300 carbon fibers arranged in tows. These tows are used to form a plain weave to
generate a single laminate. Ten such laminates are assembled to form a sheet of the composite.
The laminate bundle is infiltrated with a polymer, which is thermally decomposed to leave a
carbon char. This is infiltrated with liquid silicon, which reacts with the carbon char to give SiC
forming the matrix around the carbon fiber bundles or tows. Therefore, as a final product, the
fibers are contained in tows that are embedded in a carbon matrix, which as a whole is embedded
within the SiC matrix. Schematic of a sheet of this CMC composite is shown in Figure 1 along
with a section of a single laminate is shown. The plain weave established using the above fiber
tows is also seen. Constituent highlights are
1. Carbon fibers bring together high strength and high modulus with high temperature
tolerance capability and also resistance to environmental attack. A suitable carbon-based
polymer (Polyacrylonitrile commonly known as PAN) is subjected to a controlled heating
to produce these T-300 carbon having orthotropic properties listed in Table 1.
2. Silicon Carbide is a very hard and abrasive material, having excellent resistance to
erosion and chemical attack in reducing environments. In oxidizing environments, any
free silicon in a silicon carbide compact will be oxidized immediately. Melt Infiltration
(MI) has been employed here to transport the liquid Silicon in between the fiber tows for
curing with reaction bonding, resulting in properties listed in Table 1.
A composites performance characteristics are driven by manufacturing processes and the
constituents chosen above with the help of key processing parameters manipulation. Liquid
Silicon Infiltration (LSI) has been adopted as a successful CMC processing route which is the
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source of present study samples as well (Krenkel, 2003). But, post-production characterization
study shows, most manufacturing processes result in typical flaws. It is important here that we are
able to harness their physiological makeup in order to have realistic modeling.
1.2

Observation of Manufacturing Flaws

A number of optical micrographs of orthogonal planes have been used to classify four distinct
flaws, called porosities, with in this CMC. All four classes of porosity have been highlighted in a
schematic shown in Figure 2 (Del Puglia, 2004a). The Figure 3 shows the x, y and z directional
othogonal views of the CMC especially highlighting the woven tow formation with in the SiC
matrix in a generic replicating fashion in Figure 3(b, c). Labelled in Figure 2, all porosities have
been briefly described here (Del Puglia, 2004a).
1. Inter-fiber micro-porosity (Class A porosity): This occurs between adjacent fibers
contained within a tow. It comprises either of a series of voids or spherical pores and
classified further as class A1 or large cracks between the fibers also classified as class A2
present within the interphase as shrinkage debonding.
2. Trans-tow cracks (Class B porosity): It appears as cracks that run through the tows in
planes parallel to the fibers, which are orthogonal to principal directions.
3. Matrix cracks (Class C porosity): It is composed of cracks, embedded in the matrix,
which surround the tow in planes perpendicular to the tow axes. These cracks are
contained within the SiC matrix, which encapsulates the fiber tows as an interphase.
4. Denuded matrix regions (Class D porosity): This type of porosity comprises of the large
voids, which occur at the intersection of four orthogonal tows during manufacture.
The degree of porosity has been quantified using area fraction and crack periodicity with length of
crack and it has been utilized for outlining geometric data for the porosity sub-models as
developed earlier (Del Puglia, 2004b). Homogenization method, providing relationship between
the mechanical response and damage intensity in individual modes, has been adopted for a mixed
approach that takes into account basic strain and damage mechanism (Baste, 2001). Same
technique has been adopted here in the 2D C/C-SiC CMC for transforming and translating the
individual porosity effects on to the overall thermal behavior of the Unit Cell. Present porosity
submodels have been shown in Figure 4.
1.3

Thermal Properties

Thermal conductivity is one of the driving forces in designing materials for thermal applications.
In a material, heat flow is proportional to the temperature gradient with the constant of
proportionality being the thermal conductivity. Its general form is

q i = k ij

dT
d xi

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(1)

where qi is the heat flux and k ij is the thermal conductivity. This is a second-order tensor and in
most cases a symmetric one. Another important parameter for controlling thermal transport is
thermal diffusivity . It is defined as the ratio of a materials capacity to conduct heat versus its
capacity to store it. It is related to thermal conductivity k , specific heat C p and density as

k = Cp

(2)

Relevant thermal properties of CMC constituents, shown in Table 1, along with air for the pores or
cracks are employed for the thermal transport models.

2. Experimental Measurements
Experimental work conducted earlier at Material Science Center has been used for validation
purposes (Sheikh, 2001). The theory and experimental procedure for the thermal diffusivity
measurement by the flash method, introduced earlier (Parker, 1961), has been described in detail
(Sheikh, 2000). It requires the surface of a small sample being irradiated with a laser pulse, and the
temperature response at the opposite surface recorded. The recorded data would be the
temperature- time profile of the rear face. The plot for temperature rise T Tmax measurement
against time would highlight the peak value of 1 at a certain time. Considering the initial
temperature condition of 20oC, the time for half temperature rise value 0.5 would be noted as halfrise time t1 2 . For each test these are obtained to calculate the thermal diffusivity using the
appropriate expression in Equation 3.
For a thin disc specimen with one face uniformly irradiated (1D heat flow) the thermal diffusivity
is given by the simple relation

2
= 0.139 L t

(3)

where L is the sample thickness and t1 2 is the experimentally obtained half-rise time.
Finite-element methods for determining the thermal transport properties of solids are based on the
two thermal analyses; Steady State and Transient. The steady state thermal analysis using FEM
involves applying a temperature gradient T x across the composite section in a 1D heat flow
simulation. Using Fourier Law, k x , is given as

k x = qx

x
T

(4)

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where q x is the overall heat flux in the x -direction calculated by integrating the nodal flux values
across rear face. In the current analysis, q x is obtained using the nodal flux values (in x direction) given by the FE solution on one of the faces where the temperature boundary condition
is applied as in Figure 5(a). However, due to a high degree of mesh non-uniformity and a
significant difference in the thermal properties of the matrix and fiber, the nodal flux values vary
quite considerably across that surface, and the summation employed to calculate the overall flux as
N

q x = qi Ai
i =1

(5)

i =1

where N is the number of elemental faces, Ai is the surface area of i

th

element and qi is the

th

average of the nodal flux values for the i element. The mesh size dictates N , which is arrived at
after experimenting with a range of mesh densities for convergence and accuracy. In the case of
transient thermal analysis, a heat flux is applied to one face of the composite section for a short
time and the temperature history is recorded on the opposite face to simulate the experimental
conditions. The temperature profile is obtained by averaging temperature across the complete rear
face. This is obtained from an expression similar to Equation 5, as here qi is replaced by the
nodal temperatures Ti as
N

Tav = Ti Ai
i =1

A
i =1

(6)

Tav , the average temperature, is calculated for each time step through the transient analysis and a
temperature history is recorded. In case of ABAQUS/CAE, the output database has generated the
field data for temperature for all elements. The rear surface has too many elements to manually
calculate the average temperature. Hence, temperature output is exported to a spreadsheet, where it
is ordered as suggested for finding the area of a planar surface from known coordinates (Braden,
1986). Assuming 1D uniaxial heat flow, the half rise time related to this average temperature value
is then used in Equation 3 to calculate thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity k is found
from Equation 2. The remaining scalar properties, density and specific heat C p for the
composite are determined using the rule of mixtures in Equation 7 shown in Table 3. It is
important to emphasize that two different volume fractions are involved here. One is 75% Carbon
fiber with in the Carbon matrix, forming the fiber tow. The other is the 65% fiber tow in the
composite with remaining being SiC matrix surrounding it. Using rule of mixtures, specific heat
C p and density as calculated as

C = f V f + (1 V f ) m

CpC = Cp f V f + ( 1 V f ) Cpm

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(7)

where V f is the fiber-volume fraction and the subscripts c ,

f and m denote the composite,

fiber and matrix, respectively. Given the composite weave complexity and fiber tow anisotropy,
no attempt has been made here to apply the rule of mixtures for calculating thermal properties of
the composite, and k . The results obtained during the whole modeling process are listed in
Table 4. It is imperative that the final results obtained conform fairly close to the experimental
results (Sheikh, 2001), as compared in Table 5.

3. Modeling
Figure 6 shows a schematic view of the unit cell that is created with the help of SEM micrographs
of the DLRXT composite sections in the X, Y and Z planes shown in Figure 3. Bright areas denote
SiC and dark areas denote segments of the fiber bundles in the composite of 0/90o configuration
set in plane weave pattern. From within these features a 3D unit cell is identified, which on
replicating itself through mirror translation in the three spatial directions produces the macrostructure of the CMC. Very recently researchers have adopted similar approaches for structural
analysis only (Nicoletto, 2004), (Woo, 2004), (Zako, 2003). A brief but specific outline of the
modeling undertaken with ABAQUS/CAE is given here. This entails the appropriate role of
various segments of the FE code ABAQUS/CAE called modules for one complete cycle of
analysis as listed;
1. A quarter geometric part of CMC unit cell is created in PART module by extruding a
basic sketch into a 3D feature. Further modification renders it exactly one-quarter volume
of the complete unit cell shown being assembled in Figure 7 in the ASSEMBLY module.
It also depicts the strategy used for one-quarter part being employed four times to
construct the whole, after precise translation, rotation and alignment. Each quarter part is
further divided to identify unique fiber tow and matrix regions with the help of dissecting
planes in vertical and horizontal directions.
2. The material properties calculated for the unit cell at the end of Table 2 (and in Table 3
for transient analysis) are assigned in PROPERTY module to appropriate compartments
identified for each constituent material. The sub-models used for predicting sequential
degradation due to each of the three porosities shown in Figure 4 have not been discussed
in detail due to limited space, but still the results are posted in Table 2. It is important to
highlight that contrary to the Class A, B and C porosities, the class D porosity is modeled
within the CMC unit cell as a central cavity as shown in Figure 7 with its material
conveniently chosen as air. A set of custom datum local coordinate systems is defined for
the quarter part to which orthotropy is linked. This is retained with in the part irrespective
of its assembly orientation. This is important for fiber tow orthotropic bais. For the
assembled regions to thermally interact and allow unhindered heat flow, master and slave
surfaces are defined on mating faces and INTERACTION module is used to establish a
TIE constraint amongst them in unique pairs.
3. DC3D4 tetragonal elements have been selected for meshing the unit cell in order to
harness all complicated geometric features generated while dissecting volumes. An
optimal mesh density was attained with 186,754 elements shown in the Figure 8 after
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verification that further refinements had been trivial. Similar mesh density has been
adopted for both steady state and transient thermal analyses and for both appropriate
boundary conditions are set in the LOAD module along with the heat flux load
application as shown in Figure 5. For 1D heat flow in steady state analysis, a temperature
gradient T is applied across the section of the unit cell to allow for heat flow in that
direction for which the average thermal transport property is required e.g. for determining
k x from Equation 4 a temperature gradient T x is maintained in the x -direction
and the overall heat flux q x is calculated with all other external surfaces are assumed

perfectly insulated (T n = 0) . The temperatures on the two faces, as shown in Figure

5, are set in the initial step, as one face is set to 100o whereas on the opposite face zero is
maintained, setting T = 100 across the finite distance x . During steady state analysis
output, special keyword script given below SOH returns the total section heat flux on a
surface along with SOAREA the complete planar surface area, which has been used to
find the average heat flux using Equation 5. Following lines were added in the output
section by editing the keyword list.
*SECTION PRINT, name=REARFACE, surface=y-bck, freq=1
SOH, SOAREA

In the Transient analysis, a uniform flux qo is applied to simulate laser flash on the front
face as shown in Figure 5(b). Experiments have been conducted at room temperature To .

Similar to the previous case, the outer surfaces are insulated (T n = 0) . After
removing laser flash in the second step, no heat flow condition (q = 0) is applied.
4. In the case of steady state heat transfer analyses of the unit cell, an arbitrary time period
of 1 sec is set for the solver ABAQUS/STANDARD but for the transient analysis, the
time period has a much greater role of simulating the time actually involved in real life
scenario. Presently this time relates to the time for laser pulse to flash on CMC test
specimen and more time is needed for its dissipation through to the rear face, much after
the flash. Using the STEP module, multiple steps have been defined for the time history
with an important first heat flux loading step for the laser flash and equally important
latter steps for capturing temperature profile on the rear face as guided by the flash test
theory (Parker, 1961). In order to capture various intervals of time in output, different
segments of remaining analysis time is subsequently divided in similar steps with
different fixed increment sizes and time period. This time period of each step
successively adds on to the previous step and hence, creating the complete time history
for the analysis.
5. VISUALISATION module is used to detect any irregular contouring that may occur due
to material orientation, modeling or interaction property error, if any. The output for
steady state analyses was extracted as heat flux qo from the DAT file generated. Thermal
conductivity is determined using Equation 4. For the transient analysis, the temperature
output for each node on the rear face is exported to MS Excel spreadsheet for each step

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and for each element area calculation (Braden, 1986) for finding Tav using Equation 6.
Thermal diffusivity is calculated using Equation 3 using the half rise time

t1 2 from the

rear face average temperature history obtained.

4. Results
From Table 4, it can be seen that the dominant effect of Class B (trans-tow cracks) is on the
transverse k -value and of Class C porosity (matrix cracks) is on the longitudinal k -value. The
latter value is also affected by shrinkage debonding or Class A2 porosity. But it is largely the
Class C porosity that has a major role in reducing the overall spatial thermal conductivity profile
of the CMC when these values are utilized in the unit cell. The percentage error of the through
thickness thermal conductivity value is almost approximately 5%, which is considered acceptable
in such simulations. An even larger error within the In-plane thermal conductivity values can be
due to the fact that the material morphology observed in micrographs has been modeled to the
nearest possible feature with the exception that the curved plane visible in Figure 2(b, c) between
two interwoven fiber tows containing matrix within is modeled here with a 60o slope and sharp
cornered edges that turns on both flat surfaces on top and bottom of the unit cell, instead of the
being curved. Class D porosity quantification has been adopted as done earlier by morphological
modification in the unit cell (Del Puglia, 2004a).

5. Conclusions
It has been successfully demonstrated that the thermal transport character of a CMC can be
predicted by modeling, through ABAQUS/CAE, a representative unit cell developed from the
micrographs obtained through SEM observations. A further development of a realistic set of
property values for the CMC constituents has also been done through sub-models for different
manufacturing porosities. This has resulted in the conviction of following this same sequence of
modeling methodology for material designers for thermal characterization and other studies
employing this FE package. A much faster assessment tool for material designers is evolving for
validating theoretical predictions in absence of rigorous manufacturing experimentation.

6. References
1. Baste S., "Inelastic behaviour of ceramic-matrix composites," Composites Science and
Technology, vol. 61, no. 15, pp. 2285-2297, 2001.
2. Braden B., "The surveyor's area formula," The College Mathematics Journal, vol. 17, no. 4,
pp. 326-337, 1986.
3. Brewer D., "HSR/EPM combustor materials development program," Materials Science and
Engineering A, vol. 261, no. 1-2, pp. 284-291, 1999.

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4. Del Puglia P., M. A. Sheikh, and D. R. Hayhurst, "Classification and quantification of initial
porosity in a CMC laminate," Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, vol.
35, no. 2, pp. 223-230, 2004a.
5. Del Puglia P., M. A. Sheikh, and D. R. Hayhurst, "Modelling the degradation of thermal
transport in a CMC material due to three different classes of porosity," Modelling and
Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 357-372, 2004b.
6. Krenkel W., "C/C-SiC samples from DLR (DLR-Institute of Structures and Design, Stuttgart,
Germany)," Stuttgart, 2000.
7. Krenkel W., "Microstructure Tailoring of C/C-SiC Composites." In 27th International Cocoa
Beach Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites: B, Cocoa Beach Florida, pp. 471476, 2003.
8. Nicoletto G., and E. Riva, "Failure mechanisms in twill-weave laminates: FEM predictions vs.
experiments," Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, vol. 35, no. 7-8, pp.
787-795, 2004.
9. Parker W. J., R. J. Jenkins, C. P. Butler, and G. L. Abbott, "Flash method of determining
thermal diffusivity, heat capacity and thermal conductivity," Journal of Applied Physics, vol.
32, no. 9, pp. 1679-1684, 1961.
10. Sheikh M. A., A. S. C. Taylor, A. D. R. Hayhurst, and R. A. Taylor, "Microstructural finiteelement modelling of a ceramic matrix composite to predict experimental measurements of its
macro thermal properties," Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering,
vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 7-23, 2001.
11. Sheikh M. A., S. C. Taylor, D. R. Hayhurst, and R. Taylor, "Measurement of thermal
diffusivity of isotropic materials using a laser flash method and its validation by finite element
analysis," Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, vol. 33, no. 12, pp. 1536-1550, 2000.
12. Woo K., and N. S. Goo, "Thermal conductivity of carbon-phenolic 8-harness satin weave
composites," Composite Structures, vol. 66, no. 1-4, pp. 521-526, 2004.
13. Zako M., Y. Uetsuji, and T. Kurashiki, "Finite element analysis of damaged woven fabric
composite materials," Composites Science and Technology, vol. 63, no. 3-4, pp. 507-516,
2003.
Table 1. Standard thermal property values of constituent materials.
Material

-1

-1

(W m K )

-3

(kg m )

Cp

-6

Carbon Fibre Transverse

1928

921

Carbon Fibre Longitudinal

40

1928

921

Carbon Matrix

10

1800

717

SiC Matrix

70

3200

1422

0.001

Air

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-1

-1

(x10 J kg K )

Table 2. Degradation of k with sequential introduction of each class of porosity.

C Tow

SiC Matrix

Thermal Conductivity values for Virgin

-1
-1
Material (W m K )

Longitudinal ( || )

32.4075

70

Transverse ( )

5.086

70

Thermal Conductivity values for

Material with Class A Porosity
-1
-1
(W m K )
Thermal Conductivity values for
Material with Class A and B Porosity
-1
-1
(W m K )
Thermal Conductivity values for
Material with Class A, B and C
-1
-1
Porosity (W m K )

Longitudinal ( || )

32.3444

70

Table 3.

Transverse ( )

5.0368

70

Longitudinal ( || )

32.24

70

Transverse ( )

4.44125

70

Longitudinal ( || )

29.683

29.683

Transverse ( )

4.44125

70

C p and for CMC from constituent materials property values.

Material Property
Density
(kg m-3)

Carbon Fiber

Carbon Matrix

1928

1800

1832 (fiber tow)

SiC Matrix

Composite

3200
2310.000

921

Specific Heat

Cp

-6

-1

-1

(x 10 J kg K )

717.48

870.12 (fiber tow)

1422
1063.278

Table 4. k values for Through-Thickness and In-Plane heat flow direction along
with its overall sequential degradation in the unit cell.
C Tow
Thermal Conductivity
-1
-1
(W m K )

SiC Matrix

Macro Unit Cell

||

||

In Plane

Through
Thickness

Values for Virgin Material

32.4075

5.086

70

70

34.89

16.29

Values for Material with Class A

Porosity

32.3444

5.0368

70

70

34.85

16.23

Values for Material with Class A

and B Porosity

32.24

4.44125

70

70

34.55

15.52

Values for Material with Class A,

B and C Porosity

29.683

4.44125

29.683

70

26.94

15.09

Values for Material with Class A,

B, and C Porosity used in Class
D Porosity affected unit cell

29.683

4.44125

29.683

70

25.06

13.64

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Table 5. Comparison of 1D experimental results vs. FE analyses results for thermal

conductivity, k (W m-1 K-1).
Direction

Experimental

FE Modeling
Steady-State

Transient

Through Thickness

14.39

13.639

11.55

In-Plane

22.45

25.06

25.16

Acknowledgment
Thanks are in order for Commonwealth Scholarship Commission for their financial support to the

principal author for the research conducted.

Figure 1. Schemmatic drawing of a laminate and a single lamina.

Direction

Experimental

Through
Thickness
In-Plane

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FE Modeling
Steady-State

Transient

14.39

13.639

11.55

22.45

25.06

25.16

11

Figure 2. Schematic drawing of a general plane orthogonal to either the X- or Zdirection illustrating four classes of porosities: A, B, C, and D.

Figure 3. Optical micrographs of DLR XT C/C-SiC CMC with conversion to unit cell
model; (a) y-direction, (b) x-direction and (c) z-direction.
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(a) Class A Model

(b) Class B Model

(c) Class C Model

Figure 4. Porosity sub-models along with their respective FE meshes.

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T
= 0
n

T = 0

Qx = ?

T
= 0
n

T = To
(a) Steady State

T
= 0
n

T av = ?

T
= 0
n

q = qo
(b) Transient

Figure 5. Boundary conditions for both In-plane thermal analyses.

fiber tow

SiC matrix

Figure 6. Schematic view of the composite macro unit cell of a single lamina.

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class D porosity

Figure 7. Unit cell geometry being assembled from 4 quarter parts having fibrevolume fraction 65%.

Figure 8. Meshed unit cell with 186,754 DC3D4 tetrahedral elements.

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