The Settings window for Material () summarizes the predefined or user-defined material properties for a material. This is where you can add or change material properties to fit your model and assign the material to all types of geometric entities: domains (most common), boundaries, edges (3D models only), or points. Also see Material Link and Switch for Materials.

After adding a material (see The Add Material Window and The Material Browser Window), click the Material node (for example, Material 1 or Copper) in the Model Builder. The Settings window for Material opens.

A standard Material node in the global component can turn into a layered material by adding a Shell property group. After that, it can be linked by a Layered Material Link.

Assign the material to some or all entities on a specific Geometric entity level — Domain, Boundary, Edge (3D only), or Point — on the geometry in the Graphics window (the geometry in the model).

The Overridden by list shows the names of the materials that override this material. The Selection list in the Geometric Entity section displays (overridden) for the geometric entities in which this material is overridden.

The Overrides list shows the names of the materials that this material overrides.

Select a Coordinate system defining the principal directions of the laminate. Only Boundary System coordinate systems can be selected.

Choose a Position — Midplane on boundary, Downside on boundary, Upside on boundary, or User defined. This controls the possible offset of the material from the geometrical boundary on which the mesh exists (the reference surface). For User defined, enter a value for the Relative midplane offset. The value 1 corresponds to Downside on boundary, and the value −1 corresponds to Upside on boundary. Values may be outside the range −1 to 1, in which case the reference surface is outside the laminate.

The Position setting is only used by physics features where the physical behavior depends of the actual location, such as structural shells.

By clicking the Layer Cross Section Preview () button, you get a preview plot of the single layer material, including the location of the reference surface. This plot looks similar to Figure 9-12, but there is only a single layer.

You can add material properties to the material if they are not already included. To do so, browse the available material property categories (Basic Properties, Acoustics, and so on), and select a material property or a collection of material properties in one of the property groups or material models that appear under the main level of material property categories. Right-click the material property or property group and select Add to Material, or click the Add to Material button () to add the material property or group of properties to the material.

For example, under Acoustics>Viscous Model select Bulk viscosity (muB) and right-click to Add to Material or click the Add to Material button (). If you add a material model like the Viscous Model with more than one property, all of its material properties are added to the Material Contents table. In this example, a Viscous model node is added to the Model Builder and its associated properties are added to the Material Contents table.

Material properties can be added to the Basic group or to any User-Defined Property Group from two locations — the Settings windows for Material and Property Group.

The Material type setting decides how materials behave and how material properties are interpreted when the mesh is deformed. Select Solid for materials whose properties change as functions of material strain, material orientation, and other variables evaluated in a material reference configuration (material frame). Select Nonsolid for materials whose properties are defined only as functions of the current local state at each point in the spatial frame and for which no unique material reference configuration can be defined.

Simply put, Solid materials associate material properties with specific pieces of the material, and the properties follow the material as it moves around. In particular, a solid material may be inherently anisotropic, meaning that its axes rotate together with the material. The Nonsolid choice, in contrast, applies typically to liquids and gases whose properties are associated with fixed points in space and insensitive to local rotation of the material. Such materials are inherently isotropic when studied in isolation but can exhibit anisotropy induced by external fields. In practice, this means that any anisotropic tensor properties in a nonsolid material must be functions of some external vector field.

This section lists all of the material properties that are defined for the material or required by the physics in the model. The table lists the Property, Variable, Value, and Unit for the material property as well as the Property group to which the material property belongs. The Property group corresponds to the subnodes in the Model Builder with the same name. If required, edit the values or expression for the property’s Value.

You can change the value for any property that is not synchronized by editing its value directly in the Value column, or, for a selected property, click the Edit button () to enter a value in the window that opens. If the property can be anisotropic, you can choose to enter the values in one of these forms: Isotropic, Diagonal, Symmetric, or Full. The Variable column lists the variable names corresponding to the degree of anisotropy. For example, for a symmetric electrical conductivity, it contains {sigma11, sigma12, sigma22, sigma13, sigma23, sigma 33}; sigmaij = sigmaji. For an isotropic electrical conductivity, it contains sigma_iso; sigmaii = sigma_iso, sigmaij = 0, where sigma_iso is the name of the variable for the isotropic electrical conductivity (available as, for example, mat1.def.sigma_iso).

The Family list provides quick settings approximating the appearance of a number of common materials — Air, Aluminum, Brick, Concrete, Copper, Gold, Iron, Lead, Magnesium, Plastic, Steel, Titanium, and Water. Select Custom to make further adjustments of the specific settings for colors, texture, reflectance, and so on. The default custom settings are inherited from the material selected last from the Family list.

For each of these properties, click the Color button to assign a Custom specular color or select a standard color from the list: Black, Blue, Cyan, Gray, Green, Magenta, Red, White, or Yellow.

The combination of Specular color, Diffuse color, and Ambient color gives a 3D object its overall color:

The Noise check box is selected by default, with the default Normal vector noise scale and Normal vector noise frequency taken from the material. Enter other values as needed, or click to clear the Noise check box.

The default Diffuse and ambient color opacity is 1.

The default Lighting model — Blinn-Phong or Cook-Torrance — is based on the material. Select Simple instead as needed.

For Blinn-Phong, the default Specular exponent is 64. The specular exponent determines the size of the specular highlight. Typical values for this property range from 1 to 500, with normal objects having values in the range 5 to 20. This model is particularly useful for representing shiny materials.

For Cook-Torrance, the default Reflectance at normal incidence and Surface roughness are taken from the material. The Cook-Torrance lighting model accounts for wavelength and color shifting and is a general model for rough surfaces. It is targeted at metals and plastics, although it can also represent many other materials.