SELECTION OF

MATERIALS
DESIGN FOR X

SESSION TOPICS
1. Selection of Materials
2. Material Selection by Membership
Function Modification
3. Material Selection by Dimensionless
Ranking
4. Derived Parameters of Materials Selection
5. Material Selection Software
6. Standard grades and sizes of Materials

SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
At the early stage of product design material selection can not be
done based on specific material specifications.
Material selection can not be considered independently of the
manufacturing processes that may be used.
Compatibility between processes and materials is important.
Instead of using a single comprehensive materials data base it is
preferable to divide the material data bases into classes related to the
principal shape-generating processes used in discrete parts
manufacture (grouping of materials into process compatible classes).

SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
Material Selection by Membership Function Modification:
Selection of material at the early stage of design lies in modeling
ambiguous or vague material constraints.
Example: A designer may want to use a material with a yield stress
of about 2000 psi and service temperature in the neighbourhood
of 90 degrees C.
A conventional data base search for materials with properties
greater than those specified would unnecessarily exclude
materials with properties close to the desired values, but not in
the range specified.

SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
Material Selection by Membership Function Modification:
Fuzzy logic relies on the concept of a membership function
to determine how well an object fits into a defined set.
Ambiguity in the material constraints specified by designer is
modeled by providing the designer with different levels of accuracy
to further describe the material constraints specified.
These levels could correspond to the qualifiers approximately,
close to and more or less.

SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
Material Selection by Membership Function Modification:
Example:
If pressing and sintering has been selected as a candidate primary
process, material to be with an ultimate tensile strength between 25
to 30 kpsi, then a conventional search of a small data base that
contains 102 entries would yield 15 candidate materials.
A fuzzy search with qualifier close to would yield 29 candidate
materials with ultimate tensile strength between 21 to 29 kpsi. The
qualifier approximately produces 38 materials with ultimate
tensile strength between 19 to 36 kpsi.
With more or less we have 55 materials with ultimate tensile
strength between 16 to 39 kpsi.
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SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
Material Selection by Membership Function Modification:
This may be important as other material constraints eliminate
many materials from consideration

SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
MATERIAL SELECTION BY DIMENSIONLESS RANKING:
Great source of difficulty in material selection is the distinction
between the fundamental material properties, which are given in
material data bases and the actual design requirements which are
usually based on a combination of different property values.
For a structural member in an aerospace product the designer may
be interested in maximum stiffness per unit weight, while for a high
- volume consumer product maximum stiffness per unit cost may be
more important.
Stiffness per unit weight = Youngs Modulus / Density
Stiffness per unit cost = ( Youngs modulus / Density ) X
Cost per unit weight
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SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
MATERIAL SELECTION BY DIMENSIONLESS RANKING:
Material selection requires comparison on the basis of total
performance, best performance per unit weight or best performance
per unit cost etc. The procedure for making these comparisons on
a dimensionless scale from 0 to 100 will facilitate selection.

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MATERIAL SELECTION BY DIMENSIONLESS

RANKING:

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MATERIAL SELECTION BY DIMENSIONLESS

RANKING:

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SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
MATERIAL SELECTION BY DIMENSIONLESS RANKING:
Material property is plotted on logarithmic scales.
For any property the highest and the least value are assigned 100 and 0 in that
data base.
Consider property P, Pmax and Pmin will be the highest and least values.
To find a value of N in a scale from 0 to 100 use
N =100 log(P/Pmin)/log(Pmax/Pmin)
Example: For Youngs modulus E, the largest value in the data base is likely to be
the value for diamond which gives
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Emax = 1.03 x 10 MN/m

The least value may be t6he value for natural
rubber Emin = 4.59 MN/m 2
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SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
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Emax = 1.03 x 10 MN /
m

N
= 100
log (MN/m
P/Pmin ) / log ( Pmax / Pmin )
Emin
= 4.59
N = 18.68 log ( 0.218 E )
Units of E

= MN/m

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MATERIAL SELECTION BY
DIMENSIONLESS RANKING:
100 Scale Values for Youngs Modulus:

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SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
MATERIAL SELECTION BY DIMENSIONLESS
RANKING:

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SELECTION OF MATERIALS:
DERIVED PARAMETER:
Material selection is seldom done based on one single
parameter. Many parameters
to be considered
simultaneously and aarederived parameter D for the best
performance can be derived for selection:
m1
m3

m2

D = P1 P2 P3 . . .
P1 - Tensile Yield stress

m 1= 2

P2 - Youngs Modulus

m 2 = -1

P3 - Density

m 3 = -1

For best spring performance per weight

100 Scale Value N = 100log(D/Dmin)/log(Dmax/Dmin)
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DERIVED PARAMETER:

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MATERIAL SELECTION
SOFTWARE
Ashbys Material Selection Charts
Cambridge Material Selector Software

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STANDARD GRADES AND SIZES OF

MATERIALS

Indian Standards are available for materials indicating the

designations, physical properties, chemical composition and
typical applications
Cast Irons
Steel
sheets/ strips
Free cutting steel bars
Tool and die steels
Copper, Zinc, Aluminum
SRBP and SRBF

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STANDARD GRADES AND SIZES OF

MATERIALS
It is advisable to use standard and available sheet thickness
and sheet sizes to obtain cost advantage and increased yield
per sheet
It is advisable to use standard rod diameters - preferably
use bright drawn rods and rod lengths to reduce
machining cost.
The right grade of material is important to obtain better
yield and consistent quality- eg drawing quality sheets for
drawn components and free cutting rods for machined parts

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STANDARD GRADES AND SIZES OF

MATERIALS
Manufacturers of raw materials
have their own grades
and recommended applications and processing details
particularly for plastic
resins and sheets and these
should be followed for optimum results
Availability and minimum order quantities for a
particular material/ grade/ colour should be
confirmed before specifying the material in the product
design
Standard parts should be used as far as possible to
reduce procurement,inspection,inventory and assembly
cost
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SUMMARY
The designer should understand

Importance of materials selection

Material selection methods
Material selection software
Standard grades and sizes of materials

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