Material modeling of the CVI-infiltrated carbon felt II. Statistical study of the microstructure, numerical analysis and experimental validation

This paper employs the homogenization procedure proposed in [1] (Piat
R, Tsukrov 1, Mladenov N, Verijenko V, Guellah M, Schnack E, et al.
Material modeling of the CVI-infiltrated carbon felt. I. Basic
formulae, theory and numerical experiments. Compos Sci Technol, this
issue) to predict the effective elastic properties of the CVI-densified
carbon felts. It involves statistical analysis of the microstructure
and approximation of pores by equivalent ellipsoids having the same
volume, elongation and orientation as actual cavities.
The distribution of these ellipsoids, their orientation and volume
fraction is described by a distribution function obtained from the
statistical data. This function is then utilized for calculation of the
effective material parameters of the composite. The procedure is
validated by comparing the calculated effective properties with the
results of experiments conducted on two different modifications of the
infiltrated carbon felt composite.