I am trying to simulate fibers in a matrix for a composite in both a thermal and a structural case using embedded elements. This is my first time using the embedded elements constraint, so I made some simple check out cases to understand their limitations. The Abaqus documentation states that "Rotational, temperature, acoustic pressure, and electrical potential degrees of freedom at an embedded node are not constrained." This makes me believe that heat cannot be conducted between the host material and the embedded material. However, the cases I ran seem to indicate that this is not the case, and heat is conducted between the two materials.

The checkout case consisted of a cube with a cylinder through the center of it, each with separate thermal conductivities. The initial temperature everywhere was 100F. A transient case was run for 10 seconds with 500F as a BC on the top surface and 100F as a BC on the bottom surface. Results are shown below. The contours on the left are the results for cases without the embedded constraint assigned. Results on the right are with the embedded constraint assigned.

The only difference between these two cases was that the embedded constraint was ignored in one. Clearly there is heat conducted between the two parts. Am I misunderstanding what the documentation means by temperature DOF not being constrained? If anyone has an explanation for this it would be greatly appreciated.