Material Object

The Material Object lets you define or change materials. Each material defines the material constants of the associated solids.

General

Reset

Sets all internal settings to their defaults.

 

Create

Creates a new material. All necessary settings have to be made previously.

 

Name ( name name )

Sets the name for the new material to be created using .Create.

 

Folder ( name foldername )

Sets the name for the new material folder to be created using .Create. If the name is empty, then the material does not belong to a folder.

 

Type ( enum{"PEC", "Normal", "Anisotropic"} key )

Sets the type for the material to be defined.  

 

SetMaterialUnit( enum FrequencyUnit, enum LengthUnit )

Sets the frequency and length units for the material to be defined.

All relevant units for the frequency, like for the reference tangent delta (electric or magnetic), for the dispersion, tangent delta or surface impedance list will be displayed and interpreted accordingly to this frequency scale unit.

In similar way all (possibly) corrugation properties or coating of the material will be will be displayed and interpreted accordingly to the given length scale unit.

Available enum values for the FrequencyUnit field are { "Hz", "KHz", "MHz", "GHz", "THz", "PHz" }.

Available enum values for the LengthUnit field are { "m", "cm", "mm", "um", "nm", "ft", "mil", "in" }.

Once that frequency and length units are defined by means of  SetMaterialUnit command, successive project changes in terms of global unit scale will not affect the material properties.

On the contrary a material defined without unit settings inherits the project global units. This means that in case of changes of the global units also the material properties will be scaled accordingly.

 

Delete ( name name )

Deletes an existing material with the specified name and all shapes the material is assigned to.

 

Rename ( name sOldName, name sNewName )

Renames the object specified by sOldName to sNewName.

 

NewFolder ( name foldername )

Creates a new folder with the given name.

 

DeleteFolder ( name foldername )

Deletes an existing folder and all the containing elements.

 

RenameFolder ( name oldFoldername, name newFoldername )

Changes the name of an existing folder.

Appearance

Colour ( double red, double green, double blue )

Sets the color for a new material by double values ranging from 0 to 1.

 

Transparency ( double dValue )

Allows to changes the appearance from opaque (dValue = 0) to a transparency value up to 100. Setting will be ignored if .Wireframe is set.

 

Wireframe ( bool switch )

If switch is True, all solids associated with this material will be displayed as a wireframe.

 

Reflection( bool switch )

If switch is True, all solids associated with this material are displayed using reflective surfaces (usually applied to metallic surfaces).

 

Allowoutline( bool switch )

Determine whether outlines are allowed to be drawn for solids belonging to this material. The actual visibility of outlines also depends on the setting of the global outline state as well as the current selection. If switch is False, outlines will never be drawn for the corresponding solids.

 

Transparentoutline( bool switch )

If switch is True, outlines are also displayed when the corresponding solids are drawn transparently.

 

ChangeColour

Changes the appearance for an existing material specified by the .Name method to the settings given by the .Colour, .Transparency or .Wireframe method. Changes to other parameters will not be taken. The execution of this method will - in contrast to .Create - not be regarded as a structural change and though not require the deletion of results.

Basic Material Parameters

Epsilon / EpsilonX / EpsilonY / EpsilonZ ( double dValue )

Defines the relative electric permittivity. In case of diagonal anisotropic material, the parameters for the specific components of the diagonal electric permittivity tensor can be set with the respective methods.

 

Mue / MueX / MueY / MueZ ( double dValue )

Defines the relative permeability. In case of diagonal anisotropic material, the parameters for the specific components of the diagonal permeability tensor can be set with the respective methods.

 

Rho ( double dValue )

Sets the material density value of the material in kg/m³.

This setting is important for transient thermal simulations.

 

 

 

Sigma / SigmaX / SigmaY / SigmaZ ( double dValue )

Set the electric conductivity. In case of diagonal anisotropic material, the parameters for the specific components of the diagonal tensor can be set with the respective methods.

AddJEValue ( double dJValue, double dEValue)

This method enables you to define a specific nonlinear J-E curve by adding point by point. Based on this curve, the dependency of electric conductivity on E-field is computed. Please note that not all solvers can currently support the nonlinear electric conductivity.

ResetJEList

Deletes the nonlinear J-E curve.

SigmaM / SigmaMX / SigmaMY / SigmaMZ ( double dValue )

Set the magnetic conductivity. In case of diagonal anisotropic material, the parameters for the specific components of the diagonal tensor can be set with the respective methods.

 

 

 

 

Thermal Material Properties

ThermalType (enum {"PTC", "Normal", "Anisotropic"} key )

Allows to set the thermal material type:

 

PTC

Perfect Thermal Conductor - this is the thermal equivalent to PEC. Temperature- and Heat-sources can be assigned to PTC material surfaces.

Normal

Isotropic material with a homogeneous material distribution

Anisotropic

Anisotropic material with a homogeneous material distribution

 

ThermalConductivity / ThermalConductivityX / ThermalConductivityY / ThermalConductivityZ ( double dValue )

Defines the thermal conductivity of a material. In case of diagonal anisotropic material, the parameters for the specific components of the diagonal thermal conductivity tensor can be set with the respective methods.

 

HeatCapacity ( double dValue )

This parameter defines the specific heat capacity in [kJ / (K kg)]. This setting is relevant only for transient thermal simulations.

 

BloodFlow ( double dValue )

The Bloodflow coefficient is a parameter of the bioheat equation. It determines the influence of blood at a certain temperature inside the tissue volume V. The reference temperature for the bloodflow (usually: 37 C) can be defined in the thermal solver specials dialog boxes of the stationary- and the transient solver.

 

MetabolicRate ( double dValue )

The Basal metabolic is a parameter of the bioheat equation. It describes the amount of heat  which is produced by tissue per volume V.

 

VoxelConvection ( double dValue )

This parameter allows to consider convection processes on voxel models. Typically this parameter is used with a material describing skin. For coarse voxel models it is advisable to use fat in addition. Only voxel-background material surfaces are taken into account.

 

ResetNLThermalCond

Delete the nonlinear thermal conductivity curve.

 

AddNLThermalCond ( double dTemperature, double dValue )

Adds a new data point for the dependence of isotropic thermal conductivity on temperature. Parameter dTemperature must be specified in the current temperature units. If anisotropic thermal type has been selected, all three components of thermal conductivity are set to dValue.

 

AddNLThermalCondAniso ( double dTemperature, double dValueX, double dValueY, double dValueZ )

Adds a new data point for the dependence of anisotropic thermal conductivity on temperature. Parameter dTemperature must be specified in the current temperature units. If normal thermal type has been selected, thermal conductivity is set to dValueX.

 

ResetNLHeatCap

Delete the nonlinear specific heat capacity curve.

 

AddNLHeatCap ( double dTemperature, double dValue )

Adds a new data point for the dependence of specific heat capacity on temperature. Parameter dTemperature must be specified in the current temperature units.

Mechanics Material Properties

MechanicsType (enum {"Unused", "Isotropic"} key )

This list allows to select if the material should be used with isotropic properties for the simulation.

 

YoungsModulus ( double dValue )

This parameter defines the stiffness of an isotropic elastic material. It is normally measured in GPa, or kN/mm2. The typical values vary between 0.01 GPa (rubber) and over 1000 GPa (diamond). It is important to know the value of this material parameter very well, since it has a large influence on the accuracy of the solution.

 

PoissonsRatio ( double dValue )

This parameter defines the scale of the transverse contraction of a longitudinally stretched body. This parameter can vary between -1 and 0.5, whereas most of the materials are characterized by a positive Poisson's ratio.

 

ThermalExpansionRate ( double dValue )

The expansion coefficient is the strain of a body, if its temperature changes by 1 K. This value is utilized to compute strain induced by an external temperature field.

 

ResetTempDepYoungsModulus

Delete the temperature dependent Young's modulus curve.

 

AddTempDepYoungsModulus ( double dTemperature, double dValue )

Adds a new data point for the dependence of Young's modulus on temperature. Parameter dTemperature must be specified in Kelvin.

Queries

GetNumberOfMaterials long

Returns the number of materials.

 

GetNameOfMaterialFromIndex ( long index ) string

Returns the material name for the material specified by the zero-based index index < .GetNumberOfMaterials - 1.

 

GetTypeOfMaterial( name name) string

Returns the material type.

 

GetColour ( name name, double_ref red, double_ref green, double_ref blue )

Returns the current color values of the material named name in the parameters red, green and blue. The color values vary between 0 and 1.

 

GetEpsilon ( name name, double_ref EpsX, double_ref EpsY, double_ref EpsZ )

GetMue ( name name, double_ref MueX, double_ref MueY, double_ref MueZ )

GetSigma ( name name, double_ref SigmaX, double_ref SigmaY, double_ref SigmaZ )

GetSigmaM ( name name, double_ref SigmaMX, double_ref SigmaMY, double_ref SigmaMZ )

GetRho ( name name, double_ref Rho )

Returns the specific material parameter for the material specified by name in the respective double variables.

 

Exists  ( name name ) bool

Returns True if the material specified by name exists.

Default Settings

.Type ("Normal")

.Colour ("0", "1", "1")

.Wireframe ("False")

.Transparency ("0")

.Epsilon ("1.0")

.Mue ("1.0")

.Rho ("0.0")

.Sigma ("0.0")

.SigmaM ("0.0")