Material Properties

Here is a list of material properties available in Discovery. For some properties with temperature dependence, tabular data is available.

Note: If temperature-dependent properties are defined, they are applicable only to steady-state solid thermal, time-dependent solid thermal, and thermal-stress simulation. They are not applicable to fluid-thermal or fluid-solid heat transfer simulation. In these cases, constant properties based on the working temperature defined in the physics settings are used.


Density	The density of a material is the mass per unit volume. It is essentially a measurement of how tightly matter is packed together in a volume.
Molar mass	The average mass of a substance per mole of molecules. The base units are entered as [mass mole^-1], for example, g/mol.
Young's modulus	Young's modulus measures the stiffness of a solid material. It describes a material's strain response (proportional deformation) to uniaxial stress (force per unit area) in the direction of this stress. For example, if you were to pull on the ends of a wire, the wire would get longer. If you were to put a weight on top of a column, the column loses height.
Poisson's ratio	Poisson's Ratio measures the ratio of the proportional decrease in the lateral measurement of a material to the proportional increase in length when it is elastically stretched. So, when a material is stretched, it tends to contract in the directions transverse to the direction of stretching. For example, when a rubber band is stretched, it becomes noticeably thinner. The Poisson ratio, then, is the ratio of relative contraction to relative expansion. In certain rare cases, a material will actually shrink in the transverse direction when compressed (or expand when stretched) which will yield a negative value of the Poisson ratio. Most materials have Poisson's ratio values ranging between 0.0 and 0.5. A perfectly incompressible material deformed elastically at small strains would have a Poisson's ratio of exactly 0.5.
Shear modulus	Shear Modulus measures the ratio of shear stress to shear strain. It describes a material's response to shear stress, such as cutting it with blunt scissors. A large shear modulus value indicates a solid is highly rigid. In other words, a large force is required to produce deformation. A small shear modulus value indicates a solid is soft or flexible and little force is needed to deform it.
Bulk modulus	The Bulk Modulus of a substance is a measure of how resistant to compression that substance is. It describes the material's response to (uniform) hydrostatic pressure, such as the pressure at the bottom of the ocean or a deep swimming pool. Bulk Modulus is defined as the ratio of the infinitesimal pressure increase to the resulting relative decrease of the volume.
Tensile yield strength	Tensile Yield Strength is defined as the point on the Stress-Strain curve where the material starts to deform plastically, or, to put it another way, the stress a material can withstand without permanent deformation.
Tensile ultimate strength	Tensile Ultimate Strength is defined as the maximum stress a material can withstand.
Thermal expansion coefficient	The thermal expansion of a material is the volumetric response of the material to a change in temperature. Thermal expansion is assumed to be isotropic in behavior and so expands or contracts equally in all directions.
Thermal conductivity	The thermal conductivity of a material is the ability of the material to conduct heat.
Specific heat	The specific heat capacity of a material is the heat required to raise the unit mass of a substance by one degree of temperature.
Viscosity	The viscosity is the dynamic viscosity of a material and is the resistance to flow. The dynamic viscosity must be defined when modeling fluid flow.
Isotropic thermal conductivity	The Isotropic thermal conductivity of a material is the ability of the material to conduct heat equally in all directions.
Electrical conductivity	Electrical conductivity is the measure of a material's ability to conduct an electric current. A high conductivity indicates a material that readily allows the movement of electrical charge.
Relative permittivity	Relative permittivity is the ratio of the permittivity of a material to the permittivity of free space or vacuum.
Electric loss tangent	Electrical loss tangent represents a dielectric material's ability to dissipate the power of a high-frequency electric field. The smaller the loss tangent, the less lossy the material.
Relative permeability	Relative permeability is the ratio of the permeability of a material to the permeability of free space or vacuum.