Selecting and Fitting Materials

Selecting Materials

Use the Materials tool to select materials for the analysis.

Material selection has to be done before updating the process conditions during the model setup.

From the Polymers ribbon, click the Materials tool.
In the Material Database dialog, to the right of , click the triangle and select Polymers.
Select the appropriate material(s) for the analysis by right-clicking on the material and selecting Select from the context menu, or click .
You can select more than one material. The material(s) that you select will be shown in the Inlet Process dialog. In that dialog, you'll have to select the suitable polymer material at each inlet surface.
You can select/unselect materials as you choose. For this analysis, however, you need only one material.

You can review properties of the material including the Viscosity Graph which allows you to observe the viscosity of the material with respect to strain rate.

Fitting Materials

Use the Materials tool to fit materials.

In order to fit a polymer material, an input data file is required.

The format of the input file is shown below:


                        Name PVC_Generic
                        Class Polymer
                        Density 2260.0
                        SpecificHeat 896.0
                        Conductivity 0.167
                        CoeffOfThermalExpansion 1e-005
                        VolumetricHeatSource 0.0
                        TemperatureUnit 1
                        FreezeTemperature 325.0
                        # ConstitutiveModel Types
                        # 1 = PowerLaw
                        # 2 = Cross
                        # 3 = ModifiedCross
                        ConstitutiveModel 3
                        # TemepeatureDependence Types
                        # 1 = Exp(-Beta(DeltaT))
                        # 2 = Exp(Q/RT)
                        # 3 = Exp(Tb/T)
                        # 4 = WLF
                        TemperatureDependence 1
                        END HEADER DATA
                        NumTemperatureCurves 3
                        Temperature 240
                        CurvePoints 6
                        13.4  2500
                        244  1160
                        908  443
                        3150  198
                        7470  111
                        10500  86.3
                        Temperature 260
                        CurvePoints 6
                        12.7  1560
                        234  820
                        856  351
                        3120  152
                        7480  84
                        10500  65.2
                        Temperature 280
                        CurvePoints 7
                        11.9  866
                        223  524
                        746  276
                        2970  124
                        7350  66.3
                        10600  50.6
                        15100  40.5
                        END

From the Polymers ribbon, click the Materials tool.
In the Material Database dialog, right-click in the dialog and select Fit Material.
Select the file and click OK.
A material file is created inside the selected folder.

How Do I Add a New Material to the Database Using Fit Material?

Copying Materials

Use the Materials tool to copy materials.

From the Polymers ribbon, click the Materials tool.
In the Material Database dialog, right-click on the material and select Copy to user area.

A copy of the selected material will be added to User Materials under the respective material class. Material name can be edited in the highlighted entry. Edit mode is enabled to change any material property.