COMM Toolbox: A MATLAB toolbox for micromechanical analysis of composite materials

The COmposite MicroMechanics (COMM) Toolbox is a design tool, developed in MATLAB, which provides efficient pre- and post-processing capabilities for micromechanical analyses of composite materials with finite element analysis. The COMM Toolbox has automated all manual tasks associated with micromechanical analyses of composite materials, providing a simple, convenient environment for creating, submitting, monitoring, and evaluating results from micromechanical analyses. The interactive pre-processing capability currently enables a variety of fiber distributions to be generated, allowing either nonuniform or regular fiber arrangements for both low and high fiber volume fractions to be analyzed under mechanical and/or thermal loading. The functionality of the above features has been demonstrated by carrying out a case study examining the effect of fiber volume fraction on material behavior. Importantly, the COMM Toolbox means that advanced multiscale modeling concepts, which determine material behavior based on the physical interactions of the constituent phases, are likely to gain more widespread exposure from potential academic or industry-based interests. The COMM Toolbox is freely available to the community and can be obtained by contacting the corresponding author.