The Material Browser window (
) contains a number of databases with a broad collection of elastic, solid mechanics, electromagnetic, fluid, chemical, thermal, piezoelectric, and piezoresistive properties of materials. The number of material databases depends on which COMSOL products your license includes. See
About the Material Databases for information about available material databases. Use the Material Browser to find predefined materials and add them to the Model Builder, or create a custom material library.
The Material Browser is similar to
The Add Material Window but it includes detailed property information about each material. From this window you can also create a new material library and import a material library. See
Adding Materials to a Component for information about adding materials to your model’s components (geometries). Click
Done (
) to close the
Material Browser and add the materials in the
Added to model list to the model. Click
Cancel (
), press Escape, or click in the main toolbar to exit the
Material Browser without adding any materials.
Right-click a material library in the Material Browser and choose
Reload Selected (
) to clear all cached data for that library and force the COMSOL Multiphysics software to reload the content from the file system. This operation is useful, for example, if the library is a user-defined library that has been edited since the COMSOL Multiphysics session started and needs to be reloaded to display the latest contents.
You can browse all of the available material databases or search for specific materials. There is also a Recent Materials folder where you find the most recently used materials.
Search a specific material by name (or, for the Material Library product, by UNS number or DIN number, which are listed in the Material Browser when available).
When browsing the material databases, in particular the Material Library, some materials include additional information — UNS number, DIN number, and composition.
As in Figure 9-3, the following information is included in the window to the right of the material tree. Navigate in the material tree and click a material to display the information.
While browsing the databases, predefined material properties for the selected material are listed in a table in the columns Property,
Expression,
Unit, and the
Property group to which the material property belongs. If
Property group is empty, the material property is a
Basic property.
Under Property reference, for the materials in the Material Library product, reference information about a material’s properties appears when you click a property above.
For some materials, predefined function inputs are listed in a table in the columns Input,
Variable, and
Unit. Inputs appear for material properties defined using functions that require the input. Typical inputs are temperature and pressure, for temperature- and pressure-dependent material properties, respectively.
Click the New Material Library button (
) to open the
New Material Library dialog box. You can also right-click a material and select
Add to New Library (
) to create a new material library and add that material to the new library. Go to
Creating a New Material Library and Adding and Editing Materials.