When you are doing various analyses in ANSYS, generally use materials that are needed to have enough material property information in the Engineering Data. Sometimes, to can not find your material in the ANSYS materials library. In this situation, you need to create your material with the material properties information that you have already in this software. In this text you will learn creating materials in this software. And how can you add properties to your newly created material in this software. Also, if you follow the below information and example, you will learn how to create and define all the properties of your new material in this software.
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How to Create a New Material in ANSYS?
Firstly, to start to the creating new materials in this software, double click on the Engineering Data from your analysis in the Workbench shown by the red arrow above.
Secondly, click on the Engineering Data Source tab as shown by the red arrow above. Then click on the click here to add a new library to ‘create your material library’ inside this software as shown in the red box.
And enter your new material library name and press enter. There will be a screen that appeared. Enter your .xml file name as shown by the red arrow above, then click on Save(‘Kaydet’ means Save in Turkish) to create your new material in ANSYS.
After that, you just tick on the place shown by the green box above. And, to create your new material inside this library, click on ‘Click here to add a new material’ as shown in the red box above.
Defining Material Properties of New Material in ANSYS
To add material properties while creating new materials in this software, you need to just drag a material property to the ‘Property’ tab as shown by the red arrow from the Toolbox region in the red box above. Also, untick the ‘Filter Engineering Data’ that filters lots of material properties that you can not see in the Toolbox.
For example, we added a Density property to our new material. Then you just input your value as shown by the red box then select your unit for your new material property as shown in the red arrow in ANSYS.
Also, you can add your new material property as tabular data as shown by the red arrow above. For example, we defined our Density of new material in this software as tabular data that changes with the temperature which is showing the Value is Tabular as in the red box above in ANSYS.
Saving the New Material
When you complete the creating new material in ANSYS, just untick the newly created material library by you as shown in the green box above. Then save the changes by clicking on the Yes as shıwn by the red arrow to finish your creation of the new material in this software.
Finally, your new material is created, and you can use this newly created material in this software analyses.
Adding a New Material Property in ANSYS
Firstly, for editing the properties of ANSYS materials, double click on the Engineering Data of analysis as shown by the red arrow above in ANSYS.
Then, click on the Engineering Data Sources above tab shown by a red arrow after double-clicking on Engineering Data to add a property to material in ANSYS.
And then, select a material group as shown by the red box above then tick on the green box selection to add a material property in ANSYS.
For example, if we want to add a new property to Gray Cast Iron, click on the Gray Cast Iron, all properties will open below in ANSYS.
Selecting Material Properties to Edit
For instance to add a new property to Gray Cast Iron material, select a property that you want to add from the green box above. Also, the Filter Engineering Data as shown by the red arrow above if you couldn’t find your specific property in the green box. Then drag your material property to the Property tab such as Damping Factor as shown by the green arrow above in ANSYS.
So, as you can see you could enter a value to the dragged material property in the red box above. The damping ratio is a dimensionless value, so there no unit of it. Also, if you add a material property that has a unit, you can select a unit for it.
After you are done with adding material properties to a material, you need to click on the Save button shown by the green arrow above to save your adjustments in ANSY®. Then close from the Engineering Data to complete the material property adding process in ANSYS.
Changing a Material Property in ANSYS
Firstly, to open the material library and the material section of ANSYS, double click on Engineering Data as shown by the red arrow above in ANSYS.
Secondly, to change a material property or add material property in ANSYS, click on the Engineering Data Sources tab as shown by the red arrow in Engineering Data in ANSYS.
For example, you want to change a material’s property in the General Materials sublibrary in ANSYS as in the red box above, tick the shown place by the green box in the red box in ANSYS.
Finally, in general materials, you want to change the properties of Structural Steel, click on that material as shown by the green arrow, as you can see the properties of Structural Steel is changeable as shown in the green box. So, you can change the value of a material property by entering a value and by adjusting a unit of it from the properties tab.
How do assign different materials to different parts in ANSYS Mechanical?
Firstly, you need to select the materials from Engineering Data to assign these materials to the parts that you open in ANSYS Mechanical. So double click on the Engineering Data as shown by the blue arrow below.
Click on Engineering Data Sources as shown by the blue box above and select your material library that that material that you want to use in ANSYS Mechanical as shown by the red box, then select the materials that you will use in ANSYS Mechanical by clicking on little plus buttons as shown by red arrows.
So close from the Engineering Data Sources section then click on the Model as shown by the red arrow below to open ANSYS Mechanical to assign these selected materials to the parts.
We selected the whole materials as you can see. You can use these materials in ANSYS Mechanical.
In the interface, you need to open your geometry tab as shown by the red box above then you could select your assembly geometries individually to assign different materials inside the ANSYS Mechanical interface.
As you can see you can assign materials from the section as the red arrow. And also you can see we assigned the default materials as Structural Steel which is a default material in this software.
Adding Different Materials in ANSYS
Firstly, to select materials for your analysis in ANSYS, click on Engineering Data on your analysis on Workbench as shown by the red arrow above
Secondly, to show the whole materials in the ANSYS library, click on the Engineering Data Sources as shown by the red arrow above.
So, these are the whole materials inside ANSYS that are defined. Also, this list will have created materials by you. After that, just click on one of these material libraries to select your material around them.
For example, I selected the General Material library as shown by the red box above then I selected the Concrete material inside this material library as shown by the green box. To add this Concrete material to the analysis, just click on the plus button as shown by the green arrow above.
Finally, if you add a material to the this software analyses from Engineering Data, a little book appears next to these materials. As you can see from the green box, you could add multiple materials to your analysis in this software.
In conclusion, it is confused creating and adding materials into the FEA simulations in ANSYS Workbench. You need to know the difference, and creating materials is a completely different thing in this software. Also, you can add new properties to existing materials in this software. Workbench to make simulations with the new property of that material.
Conclusion
So, do not forget to leave your comments and questions below about creating new materials in ANSYS Workbench.
NOTE: All the screenshots and images are used for educational and informative purposes. Images used courtesy of ANSYS, Inc.
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