Material selection is a critical component of the design process, whether in a model rocket club or F1 race car design team. Small variations in material properties such as stiffness have a large impact on everything from performance to safety. It follows that accurate simulation relies to a large degree on the accuracy of the material specification behind a simple material UI.
Material UI
OnScale Solve provides a small list of common materials to get you started, but we expect that in most cases users will have specific material properties that match their specification or test data.
The properties for any of the materials in the global library can be modified within a project. Open a material in Edit mode to change the elastic or thermal properties. Check out How to Add Materials in OnScale Solve for more details.
It’s a quick read to set you up for success navigating our material UI.
The Short Of It:
You can adjust Density, Young’s Modulus, Poisson’s Ratio, Specific Heat Capacity, Thermal Conductivity, and Thermal Expansion. Our current material properties apply to linear elastic and isotropic materials for mechanical simulations and isotropic Fourier materials for thermal simulations.
Once you’ve imported CAD and assigned a material, you can enjoy the full versatility that Web-Based FEA allows for.
Maybe you’re wondering
“Why make the switch if I have custom materials with what I’m using now?” OR “What makes a Web-Based platform better than my computationally honed workstation?” OR “What improvements are coming to your material UI?”
Well, glad you asked!
Of course, engineers don’t inhabit a world where we use one kind of carbon steel, one kind of aluminum, and polyethylene. Yet, you no longer have to choose between ease and functionality when it comes to materials: Solve provides both.
In Solve, you can instantly switch between material properties or whole materials without disturbing your set loads. This allows you to chase perfection in your design process and track results across numerous simulations in minutes!
There are no more headaches about sharing custom materials, since we have Team Collaboration. That allows your team to interact and share seamlessly with one another, or any other team.
If you don’t have an OnScale Solve Account yet, take advantage of this freedom and our growing repertoire of functionalities by making one below!
