micromechanics; composites

The longitudinal compression strength of unidirectional composites F1c, also called Xc, is very difficul to test for, so often you don't have the value for the particular material (fiber, matrix, volume fraction) that you wish to use. Further, just having data does not tell you what paramaters really influence its value--it is not the compressive strength of the fiber, I can assure you. So, there is a simple formula that you can use to predict its value and also to understand what are the parameters that really affect the compression strength of the composite.

Hi,

I am trying to do with ABAQUS Cae now what I usually and successfully did with MSC Patran - produce a unit cell for particle reinforced composite. In other words,  I need to generate a "ball in a box" model.

So, I produce a part Cube and a  part Ball. After that I create Sections and Instances (what seems to be unnecessary if comparing with Patran, but apparently needed to link CAE with CADs), and assign Materias (lets say, Glass to Ball, and Polymer to Cube).