materials

Members derive their behaviour from two properties: Their Material and their Cross-section.


creating materials
Selecting a member's material can be done using the toolbar. But before materials can be applied they have to be created and set appropriately. This is done using the "Material"-page on the Main Console.

The main feature of the Material-page is the list of materials. Selecting one of materials in the list will show it's properties in the "Material Properties"-page.

At the moment (Beta-version, remember?) there are only a few properties that can be set:
the modulus of Elasticity, the Density and the Color.
Although the color of a material is not very important from a mechanical point of view, it is very useful as visual feedback during the construction of a virtual model.

There are no units specified that must be used for the properties. But thoughout the model the same units should be used. If the geometry of the model is in meters then all the properties should use the meter as their unit of length as well. The same applies for the unit of force.

INSERTED BETA-RELEASE 2 NOTE:
MATERIAL STRENGTH PROPERTIES ARE ADDED.

These can be used for visual feedback of the stress within the displaced members. More information later in the 'calculation' chapters
Extended explanation of these features will incorporated in future versions of Sfere2.

adding a material to the list
To create a new material, simply click on the "New"-button at the top-left. This will add an item to the list. This item is automatically set to "rename" so a more appropriate name can be entered.

KNOWN BUG: Sometimes if "Enter" is not pressed to OK the name, then for some reason the list has a hard time acknowlegding the fact that it hasn't got the system's focus anymore. This leads to annoying side effects of other interface elements not getting the focus they deserve. If this happens simply click in the list. This will somehow remind the list that it isn't editing some name anymore.
WORKAROUND: Press "Enter" to OK the name.

After entering an appropriate name, edit the material properties so they best reflect the needed material.


applying materials to members
For applying a material to certain members, the "Material Property"-toolbar (  Tools > Toolbars > Properties > Materials  ) can be used.

Simply select the members and then select the material from the toolbar's dropdown list.

This toolbar automatically shows the material applied to the selected members. That is if all selected members share the same material, otherwise it'll be blank.



seeing the materials
By selecting "Display Member by Material" (  View > Display > Members > by Material  ), the members in the view will be displayed using their material's color. If a member has no material applied to it, it will be displayed using a dithered black.


display members by object color

display members by material color