Use the Engineering Data Materials view to search through the material libraries for materials to add to your project. Ansys provides several sample material libraries. You can also add your own material libraries via the Settings option in the Engineering Data Materials Dialog.
Searching for Materials
Enter the search criteria for materials in the search field (for example, part or all of a material name, label, or property). To return to the list of favorites, recent, and project materials, use the Backspace key to delete the search criteria.
Filtering Materials
To access additional filtering options, click the filter button 
. This displays the filtering options
pane. The filter button shows how many filters are currently selected. All criteria must be
matched in a material for it to be returned in the search.
To use filters to search for materials, do the following:
Click the arrow on one of the drop-down material filter groups to show or hide filtering criteria. (Note that choices in these groups are filtered to avoid choosing invalid criteria.)
Alternatively, click the Show All button to view a list of all materials.
Click the check box next to a filter to select it. You can select filters from multiple material filter groups.
Click the Search button. A list of materials that match the selected filter(s) appears.
Add the desired material to your project as described in Adding Materials to a Project.
Click Clear active filters to deselect all active filters.
Material Filter Groups
The available filter groups are listed below. Each group label shows the name of a group and the number of filters that are currently active in that group. Click the arrow on a label to show or hide the filters in that group.
- Labels
The Labels group (the detault) filters materials by labels that correspond to industry-based categories. These labels can be typed into the search field. Note that not all materials are labeled.
- Libraries
The Libraries group filters materials by library. The available libraries can be modified in the Engineering Data Materials Settings Dialog. panel. Note that some material libraries may be not available in your product.
- Models
The Models group filters materials by material model.
Click the menu to display a drop-down menu of material models.
Select the desired material model from the menu. Its name is listed under the Models label, as shown in the example below.
To change a selected material model, click the arrow next to its name and select a new material model from the drop-down menu.
To remove a material model from the filter, click the red X next to the model name.
- Property Ranges
The Property Ranges group filters materials by the values of one or more material properties. For each property, you can specify a target value and a range of values to select.
Click Select property to display a drop-down menu of material properties.
Select the desired material property. The units of measurement and a range for that property are displayed.
Enter the target value for the property.
Drag the sliders to the right and left to specify a range of values for the filter. The upper value for the range is shown on the right-hand side of the slider. The lower value is shown on the left-hand side.
To change the selected property, click the arrow next to its name and select a new property from the drop-down menu.
To remove a property from the filter, click the red X next to its name.
In the example below, the selected material property is Density. The target value is 7000 kg/m3. The lower end of the selection range is 5e+3, or 5000 kg/m3. The upper end of the selection range is 2e+4, or 20,000 kg/m3. Materials with a density in this range will meet the filtering criteria.
