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Customising the Material Database

Customising the Material Database

Customising the Material Database

(OP)
Is anyone able to offer any help as to the best practice for modifying the material database? I want to try and add company-specific material descriptions to assign to parts, which can also be linked to drawing attributes.

I have modified the PHYS_MATERIAL.DAT file and have copied the line for STEEL to an unused line and renamed it to 6mm 250 GRADE PLATE. However the new material never appears in the database when i re-start NX.

Am i doing something wrong, or is there a better way to do this?

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007

RE: Customising the Material Database

I don't know.  It worked for me.  Make sure that you actually replaced the existing file since it's stored in a 'read-only' state.

Also make sure that you assigned your new material a unique 'libref' number (first field of each material record).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

RE: Customising the Material Database

I found in NX2 that it didn't like having spaces in the names, and that it was limited to a certain amount of characters (31 is too long).

John,

If I insert new materials in the middle of the list such that the libref number for Brass, for example, changes from 26 to 27, will I be creating a problem in a part that already had that assigned? I wanted to put them in alphabetical order...

RE: Customising the Material Database

We are looking at using NXNastran for our FEA analysis.  Does NXNastran use this user defined NX material database or is there a prepopulated database that comes with NXNastran?  I find it hard to believe that I will have to populate this database to use NXNastran.

RE: Customising the Material Database

Kirsten,

I don't know as I never tried that.  While the 'libref' number is unique in the file, I don't think it matters since the material if 'loaded' into the part file where it becomes it's own record there and that's why if you go back to the Material tool once you've assigned a material previously you will see that it's been 'loaded' into a registry on the top-level dialog where it can be accessed again if needed.  In fact you could bring several materials up into the part file and then use the Material dialog to more easily access them when needed, perhaps if you were conducting a series of tests and needed to go back and forth between several different materials.

NXdesigner,

This material database was provided to use by the CAE group as the whole material assignment function was developed explicily to meet their needs.  The user Attribute and model density was only seen as secondary functionality.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

RE: Customising the Material Database

(OP)
John/Kirsten,

Thank you for your replies. Kirsten, NX5 doesn't seem to like spaces in the material name either.

My next question is now that i have assigned a material to my component, is there a physical attribute address somewhere i can use to link a drawing note to?? ie. <W@$SH_SHEET_SCALE>

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007

RE: Customising the Material Database

(OP)
Sorry, also forgot to add something to that last post.

Because there has to be underscores in between words in the material name, this description is useless to use on a drawing. Is there a useable description that can be assigned to these material names?

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007

RE: Customising the Material Database

I did find out that if I set the customer default "Gateway>General>Update material properties from library on part load" to yes, and if I renumbered the materials in the library, that I will get a message while working in the part that the assigned material properties have changed, do I want to update? If I then hit the button to update the material in the part, the material and material attribute will change.

RE: Customising the Material Database

This interests me.
I do like a good customization and many people would do too. Can anybody tell us what the material attribute is called that you're using. i.e. going back to Ross question as to whether there is something that can be plugged into <W@MATL>, or <W@$MATL> to maintain a note on the drawing. I know how to use it to maintain the masses but these are assigned to bodies not parts and there doesn't seem to be any resultant attribute anywhere that I can obtain to put the material on the drawing.

If there is I'd be happy to hear of it. Otherwise NX-6?

Best Regards

Hudson

RE: Customising the Material Database

Well done John.

I see that it is a new thing for NX-5 that I hadn't caught up on.

Best Regards

Hudson

RE: Customising the Material Database

(OP)
Hi John,

thanks again for you reply. I did realise that the Material 'Attribute' can be defined in Customer Defaults -> Gateway -> General -> Attributes, however, I am still a little unsure of linking to this property.

When you highlight the information symbol at the above customer default you get the following message: "This option specifies whether or not a Part Attribute will be created and/or updated to reflect the current Part Material." There is a field underneath that which is where you define what the attribute is, as a default it is MATERIAL. However I couldn't find an attribute called MATERIAL anywhere that had been created.

I could manually enter in a material attribute, assign a material description, and then link to that property in a drawing. This is a workaround, but not really linking to the material selected from the material database. Is that material accessible anywhere, or is it only really to be used for, say, mass properties or C of G properties?

I have worked out how to link notes on drawings to properties via the <W@$SH_SHEET_SCALE> etc, but was wondering if there was a list of these global part properties/attributes available anywhere to view? ie material thickness (sheet-metal part)

Thanks again in advance for any help you may be able to offer.

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007

RE: Customising the Material Database

First thing to understand is that the Customer Default setting does not actually cause any attributes to be created, that only happens if and when you assign a material to one or more solid bodies in your part file.

Now when you do assign a material (BTW, there are 2 places to assign a material in NX but these attributes only work with the item found under Tools -> Materials Properties...) if you had set up both Attribute options in Customer Defaults, then a Part Attribute will be assigned to the Part File and an Object Attribute will be assigned to the Solid Body that was selected (note that if there are more than one Solid Body in the Part file and you've assigned different materials to each Solid Body, the nmae of the LAST material assigned will the one that the Part Attribute will carry).

Now when it comes time to create a drawing of say an assembly where the various parts have been assigned material properties, the actual Attributes read by the Parts List code are the Object Attributes assigned to the Components in the Assembly.  When a Part is added to an Assembly as a Component, the Part Attributes of the Part file get assigned as Object Attributes on the Components.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

RE: Customising the Material Database

Does the "part attribute" and the "object attribute", have to be different?  We're not using them yet, but I noticed they are both "Material" right now.

-Dave
Everything should be designed as simple as possible, but not simpler.

RE: Customising the Material Database

No, they can have the same name since they are two different types of attributes (no where does any NX application look are both types in one operation so a common name will not cause confusion).

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

RE: Customising the Material Database

(OP)
John,

I was able to get that working fine, didn't realise you had to select the part body before assigning a material. I thought you could just assign a material to the entire part. Once this material was assigned, I was also able to modify the description to remove the underscores.

Many thanks.

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007

RE: Customising the Material Database

(OP)
Yes, thank you for your help, it is very much appreciated. I am a relatively new user, coming across from 6-7 yrs of Solidworks, and have been very frustrated knowing what i want to do, but not being able to make certain things work.

The next question I have now relating to the above, is relating to drawings. If I add a drawing sheet to the existing part, I can link a note to that MATERIAL property easily, by selecting Edit Text => Relationships => Part Attribute.

However, if I created a separate blank drawing and added a drawing view of, say a sheet-metal part with an assigned material I can't seem to link to it. IF i right-click that component in the Assembly Navigator and check its properties, there is an attribute there now relating to it's material. The problem i am having is linking a note to reference that property.

Anyone able to offer any advice, or point me to anywhere i may be going wrong??

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007

RE: Customising the Material Database

I just caught up with this thread and found the time to check it out. This is a big step forward in my book because previously you could always assign the density via the material properties, but we used it all too seldom since the attribute used for the drawing still needed manual input. Now that you get both it really justifies creating and maintaining a materials database. Now if only we could get rid of those darned underscores then it would be perfect.

Cheers

Hudson

RE: Customising the Material Database

(OP)
Hudson,

I agree, a company-specific materials database is a big time-saver, and also ensures that each designer is using the same material descriptions in the same formats, spelling, abbreviations, etc.

I found that you could assign the material to the part, and then manually remove the underscores from the description. It's a work-around, but it's a start

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007

RE: Customising the Material Database

Yes Ross I'm with you and saw your earlier post. I'm reading through the other comments as well noting that a few people seem to like the way this works, and having been aware of the material properties since it was introduced I realize both how valuable this extra functionality really is and how long we have missed it. So hopefully I could make a subtle suggestion that if it could make the extra step by getting rid of the underscores for NX-6 that would be super.

What I want is for a list of materials to be created so that I never have to type the names again. Now if I do have to type anything at all then in all cases where possible I'll probably cut and paste the attribute values, because I'm lazy when I can be since it is often the most efficient way. Of course if that happens the material library still won't get used, unless you just choose to ignore the underscores. I reckon most people won't ignore the underscores, so we're tantalizingly close to having a really good thing, and yet it still eludes us until next version perhaps.

Best Regards

Hudson

RE: Customising the Material Database

(OP)
Agreed. Or add an extra column to that database that can accommodate a usable description field.

Ross

NX5.0.2.2 WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007

RE: Customising the Material Database

Yes well I'd still do the description of the part as an attribute if that's what you mean. That is if you want to add the description as in the part name that appears on the title block.

Otherwise having edited a few of these .DAT files in the past I know that it is asking more than you probably realize to change it. See the files don't look to have any column delimiter characters they probably just use the spaces, so that whole system probably needs to be revised and re-worked before you can have the spaces, such that they aren't mistaken for delimiters in themselves. You would also find that it might inconvenience some existing users, who have detailed .dat files that they've created and would have to revise, but I would vote that it is worth it.

What you could be touching on is that even if there was to be a way of editing that phys_material.dat file which forced you to add an extra item to the end of each line for the description, ie "| ALUMINIUM 6061 <CR>" where "|" is a special delimiter and <CR> is just the end of the line, then I'd certainly go to the trouble. Matter of fact you might even use the quotation marks somehow.

Anyway it is all good theory perhaps we'll see it used someday hopefully soon enough.

Best Regards

Hudson

RE: Customising the Material Database

...say a sheet-metal part with an assigned material I can't seem to link to it.

Ah, I see you found IT!!!!

If you look back a couple of items I mentioned that there were TWO places in NX where material properties were assigned BUT only the one under Tools -> Material Properties... create attributes that you could use in such things as Parts Lists and notes.  At the moment, the Material Designation assigned in NX Sheet Metal DOES NOT assign user accessible Attributes.  We're aware of this 'separate but unequal' situation and we hope to address it soon, but until then, we recommend that after starting your sheet metal model with the appropriate material defined there, that you then assign a normal material using the item found under Tools.  Now the good news is that doing this will have no conflicting impact in either direction, but of course the bad news is that there is nothing to make sure that the two material assignments are consistent with each other or that changing one will cause the other to update.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

RE: Customising the Material Database

Or add an extra column to that database that can accommodate a usable description field.

I'm going to take this up with the people who are responsible for the Materials Properties database and I'll get back if and when I learn anything.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

RE: Customising the Material Database

John,

By the matter referring to the Sheet Metal module using the material do you mean to use the material assigned by under Tools>Material Properties to define the neutral axis offset for bending? Which would be good, unless it caused problems with people complaining that they can't bend glass wink...

Regards

Hudson

RE: Customising the Material Database

Actually you can bend glass, just that you have to be very careful and you have to be able to work where it's really hot winky smile

For now, you use the Material assigned inside of NX sheet metal to define the neutral axis offset, but use the general 'Tool' to get the specific density and attributes correct.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
NX Design
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
http://www.plmworld.org/museum/

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