Material modeling of the CVI-infiltrated carbon felt I: Basic formulae, theory and numerical experiments

A material model for predicting the unknown elastic properties of the
chemical vapor infiltrated carbon felts is proposed. Representative
volume element of the studied material includes pyrolytic carbon
matrix, randomly distributed carbon fibers (carbon felt) and pores. The
homogenization procedure for this composite consists of two steps: (1)
homogenization of material response without pores, i.e., homogenization
of a media consisting of carbon fibers randomly distributed in an
isotropic pyrolytic carbon matrix; (2) homogenization of material
response with presence of pores, i.e., homogenization of a media
consisting of three-dimensional pores embedded in the homogenized
matrix from the previous step. The proposed model constitutes a
theoretical basis for the numerical analysis of various carbon/carbon
material systems that will be presented in the consecutive
publications.