Creo Simulate > Modeling Structure and Thermal Problems > Properties > Materials > Guidelines and Background > About Material Properties
  
About Material Properties
Material properties are required for all simulation models. You use them to define the physical characteristics of the material to be used within the analyses.
Creo Simulate supports various types of material properties, such as isotropic, transversely isotropic, hyperelastic,elastoplastic, and orthotropic materials. The software provides a material library with a standard set of isotropic material properties. You can also create your own material sets and maintain your own enhanced material library.
When material properties are assigned to geometric entities like parts, surfaces, and volumes, they are automatically assigned to the resulting elements.
When you create or assign a material property to a model, the specific property values are determined by the principal system of units (such as IPS and MKS) previously set for the model. However, you can change units for individual properties from the Material Properties dialog box. It is important to note that even though you can define each material property in different sets of units, when you run an analysis, the units for materials are always interpreted as the principal system of units set for the model. You can create and display custom units from Creo Parametric's Units Manager.
When specifying material properties, it is important to understand and identify failure criteria up front. Some other things to consider include:
What failure criteria and safety factors will be applied?
Over what temperature range are the properties valid?
Are the properties dependent upon processing conditions?
Has the stress limit (yield point) been reached?
Are the properties dependent upon strain rate?