SOLIDWORKS User-Defined Materials

If you use a material from the SOLIDWORKS database, you are limited in how you can change the material properties. However, SOLIDWORKS User-Defined Materials allow you to apply custom material properties. Various material model types are accessible in SOLIDWORKS custom material such as Linear Elastic Isotropic, Linear Elastic Orthotropic, Nonlinear Elastic, Plasticity (von Mises / Tresca / Drucker Prager), Hyperelastic (Mooney Rivlin / Ogden / Blatz Ko), Viscoelastic, Nitinol and etc.

How to define a new material

As an example, the step by step procedure to define a new Linear Elastic Orthotropic material is shown below:

1) Right-click on any SOLIDWORKS database material and select Copy from the shortcut menu.

Copy a Material

2) Right-click on Custom Material folder/category, then select New Category

New Material Category

3) Rename it. In this case, it is renamed as “New Linear Elastic Orthotropic Material”

Rename Material Category

4) Right-click on newly added material category and click Paste.

Paste material into new Material Category

5) In the Properties tab, under drop down list of Model Type, select “Linear Elastic Orthotropic”

Specify Model Type

6) Input values of your material properties in different directions or planes.

Add Material Properties

7) Furthermore, if some of the material specs are dependant on temperature, you can input them in the second tab (Tables & Curves), as follows:

Material Type Settings

8) Now input them manually (in order to add another row, double-click on the last point number) or you can copy and paste them from a spreadsheet data points.

Add Type Values

9) Close the dialog when complete.

Note: if you want to download even more materials for SOLIDWORKS you can follow the steps outlined in this tech tip video.