Understand how centralized material information improves consistency across design, simulation, manufacturing, and compliance workflows.
The right material can improve the reliability of a product, help it stand out from the competition, and reduce costs associated with manufacturing or operation. However, the number of available materials has increased dramatically over recent decades. Metals, polymers, composites, coatings, adhesives and emerging engineered materials all provide different combinations of strength, weight, thermal behaviour, electrical properties, durability and cost.
Most companies recognise that materials information plays a critical role in product development. Still, many do not use a consistent approach to collect, manage and apply that information across the organisation.
Materials data is used at multiple stages of the product development process. For example, a designer can assign a material to a component in computer-aided design (CAD) software to estimate product weight or create a bill of materials. A simulation analyst may assign a specific material model in computer-aided engineering (CAE) software to evaluate stress, deformation, heat transfer, vibration or fatigue behaviour.
Basing a design or simulation on incomplete, outdated or incorrect materials data can create serious problems. It can lead to incorrect performance predictions, late-stage redesign, manufacturing complications, compliance issues and potentially unreliable products. Effective material information management helps reduce these risks by ensuring that engineering teams work from consistent, trusted and traceable data.
Material information should not be viewed as a collection of isolated datasheets stored in folders, emails or spreadsheets. It is engineering data that directly affects design decisions throughout a product’s lifecycle.
A useful materials record may include much more than a material name and density. Depending on the application, it can include:
Mechanical properties, such as elastic modulus, yield strength, tensile strength and fatigue data
Thermal properties, such as conductivity, specific heat and coefficient of thermal expansion
Electrical properties, such as conductivity, dielectric constant and resistivity
Physical properties, such as density, hardness and moisture absorption
Chemical resistance and environmental durability
Manufacturing information, including process compatibility and recommended conditions
Compliance information, including restricted substances and applicable standards
Source information, test conditions, revision date and approval status
The value of this information increases when it is structured, searchable and connected to the tools engineers use every day.
One of the most common material-data challenges is inconsistency. Different teams may use different values for the same material because they have sourced them from different suppliers, historical projects, online databases or legacy documents.
For example, a CAD user may select a generic aluminium grade for mass estimation, while a simulation analyst uses a different grade with unrelated strength and thermal properties. Even if both choices appear reasonable, the product team is no longer working from the same engineering assumptions.
A centralised materials database or controlled materials library helps establish a single source of truth. It allows approved material records to be shared across design, simulation, manufacturing, quality and procurement functions.
This does not mean every engineer should be prevented from exploring alternatives. It means that approved materials used for official design and simulation decisions should be controlled, traceable and available to the right people.
Materials data becomes difficult to manage when naming conventions and property definitions are inconsistent.
The same material may appear under several names, abbreviations or supplier codes. Units may also vary between projects. One record may list elastic modulus in gigapascals, another in megapascals, and a third may provide only a value without a defined unit.
These issues can create unnecessary errors, especially when data is transferred between CAD, CAE and product lifecycle management systems.
A material management process should establish clear rules for:
Material naming and internal identification
Grade, condition and temper notation where applicable
Units of measurement
Property definitions
Test methods and test conditions
Required metadata for each material record
Revision and approval status
For example, a material property may depend on temperature, loading direction, strain rate, humidity, manufacturing route or sample orientation. Recording a value without its test conditions can lead users to apply it outside the range where it is valid.
Standardisation makes the library more reliable and makes it easier for engineers to find, compare and reuse materials data.
A common mistake is to rely on a single room-temperature value for a material property, even when the product operates under very different conditions.
Many material properties change with temperature, loading rate, moisture exposure, frequency, pressure or service time. A polymer used in an electronics enclosure, for example, may behave differently at elevated temperature than it does under standard laboratory conditions. A metal component exposed to cyclic loads may require fatigue data rather than only a static tensile strength value.
The correct level of material detail depends on the application. Engineers should consider whether the design requires:
Temperature-dependent mechanical or thermal properties
Nonlinear stress-strain behaviour
Plasticity or creep data
Fatigue information
Anisotropic properties for composites or additively manufactured parts
Failure criteria
Frequency-dependent electrical or dielectric properties
Fluid compatibility or corrosion resistance
This does not mean every project requires highly detailed material models. It means the data selected should be appropriate for the engineering question being asked.
Material information delivers the most value when it can be used consistently across different engineering tools.
In CAD, material assignments may support mass properties, centre of gravity calculations, part documentation and product configuration. In CAE, the same material information supports structural, thermal, fluid, electromagnetic and multiphysics simulation. In manufacturing, material records can guide process planning, sourcing, quality checks and traceability.
When these systems use disconnected data, teams often spend time manually re-entering values. Manual transfer increases the chance of mistakes and makes it harder to determine which material definition was used in a particular analysis or design revision.
A connected workflow helps ensure that:
Designers and analysts use the same approved material definitions
Changes to a material record are visible and traceable
Simulation assumptions can be reviewed later
Material selection decisions are easier to document
Teams can reuse validated data across future projects
The goal is not only efficiency. It is confidence that engineering decisions are based on consistent inputs.
Materials information should be governed in the same way as other important engineering data.
Not every data point needs the same level of review, but teams should be able to distinguish between preliminary information, supplier-provided data, internally tested data and approved values for design release.
A useful approval process may include:
Defined owners for creating and maintaining material records
Technical review of critical property data
Identification of the original data source
Revision history and date of last review
Approval status for design and simulation use
A process for retiring obsolete or duplicate records
This is particularly important when suppliers change, a material grade is discontinued, a manufacturing process is updated or new test data becomes available.
Without change control, engineers may continue to use legacy material definitions long after they are no longer appropriate for the product or supply chain.
Material selection is not only a performance decision. It can influence regulatory compliance, recyclability, environmental impact, availability, cost volatility and supply-chain resilience.
A material may meet technical requirements but create a problem later if it contains restricted substances, is difficult to source, requires specialised processing or has limited recycling options. These factors should be considered early, alongside mechanical, thermal and electrical requirements.
Materials information management can help teams record and compare factors such as:
Regulatory declarations and restricted substances
Material availability and approved suppliers
Recycled content or recyclability information
Manufacturing waste considerations
Product end-of-life requirements
Alternative material options for supply continuity
This allows design teams to make more balanced decisions and reduces the risk of discovering non-technical constraints late in development.
Simulation is a powerful way to evaluate how different material choices affect product performance before physical prototypes are produced.
For example, engineers can compare material alternatives based on weight, stress, deformation, temperature distribution, vibration response or electrical behaviour. This supports more informed selection decisions, particularly when a design needs to balance several competing objectives.
However, simulation results are only as credible as the material data used in the model. Selecting the right analysis method while assigning an inaccurate, oversimplified or poorly documented material model can lead to misleading conclusions.
Best practice is to document the material assumptions used in each simulation and confirm that the selected data is appropriate for the expected operating conditions.
Every completed project can add value to the next one.
When teams capture lessons from testing, manufacturing, field performance and simulation validation, the materials library becomes more than a database. It becomes a source of institutional knowledge.
Useful knowledge to retain may include:
Materials that performed well in similar applications
Known manufacturing limitations
Validated simulation models
Common failure modes
Recommended operating limits
Approved substitutes
Lessons from product testing or customer use
This reduces repeated effort and gives new projects a stronger starting point.
Materials information can influence nearly every stage of product development, from early concept selection to manufacturing, validation and long-term service performance.
The most effective organisations do not treat materials data as an afterthought. They manage it as a controlled engineering asset that supports better decisions across design, simulation and manufacturing.
By creating a centralised source of truth, standardising data, capturing relevant material behaviour, applying clear governance and linking information across engineering workflows, teams can reduce uncertainty and improve product development outcomes.
The result is a more reliable foundation for selecting the right materials, running more credible simulations, avoiding late-stage changes and developing products that perform as intended.