Frequently Asked Questions

Who should consider using Matereality^®?

Is Matereality^® a database, a MDM framework, or both?

What does the word "matereality" mean?:

Why is Matereality^® more economical than other data management solutions?

Who owns the data?

Is the data protected?

How does Matereality compare to data sources with>30,000 materials?

Why is data fidelity an issue?

What is traceability?

What is pertinent data?

What are my data sources?

What is the repeatability of my data?

How can I tell the accuracy of my data?

How do I rate data sources?

How can I access the data?

Payment options

Enterprise licensing

Matereality^® and DatapointLabs

What kinds of outputs are available?

Users of Matereality^® might work in the automotive, biomedical, consumer goods, appliances, defense industries, to name a few. A typical client enterprise is heavily vested in virtual product development technologies (VPD), with global collaborative efforts, using many materials. A single user of diverse materials who needs access to data on material behavior on a constant basis could also greatly benefit from Matereality.

If you use only a handful of well-characterized materials, the properties for which are easily accessible to you and all engineers involved, Matereality^® may not bring additional value to your enterprise.

It's both. Matereality^® is a MDM system that comes populated with a rapidly expanding collection of design quality material properties. To this database you can add your own data sets and manage all materials data of interest to your enterprise through a single system. This distinguishes Matereality^® from enterprise warehouse solutions that have to be populated from scratch, and from material properties databases that are heavily populated, but not necessarily with materials useful for design purposes.

The notion of 'matereality' is defined: a collection of material properties that quantifies the behavior of a product under conditions it will see at any given stage of its life cycle. The material data information management system, Matereality^®stores and facilitates access and sharing of 'materealities' in a secure environment.

Matereality^® offers access to design-quality material data at a small fraction of the typical cost. This is partly due to the unique collaborations it has set up with large data generators, like DatapointLabs. DatapointLabs characterizes over a 1000 materials per year. Many of these materials have been characterized by parties interested in sharing the material data to further their own business interests. Matereality^® facilitates such sharing. It brings to you a secure and convenient material data cataloging, management and exchange system that you can use within and outside your enterprise. Since the cost of the infrastructure is shared by a large consortium of users and customers, Matereality^® can afford to pass on savings to its users. Matereality is scaleable to enterprise-level and has been designed to fit into and contribute to the collaborative world of product design, without each group having to redesign their own material data management systems.

The person or company that pays for the data's generation owns the data. For example, if Company Y is interested in using Company B's material for a specialized process, there are two possible scenarios: Company Y could pay for material data generation for its own use, or it asks Company B to supply the data it needs. If Company B pays for the data to be generated, it is considered the owner of the data and can choose to share this data with other clients.

All data within Matereality^® is protected to the level dictated by the data owner. Data within Matereality^® can only be viewed according to data owner's specifications.

Large databanks store material properties the way the Internet store information: all kinds of information is available, whether it is useful or legitimate or not. In truth, the bulk of the properties found in large databanks is useful for comparative purposes only and is not suited for design application. It is possible to search for specific material properties data in these vast databanks, and sometimes you'll find design-pertinent data. But rarely is the data traceable. The data you find on Matereality is always accompanied by its pedigree (where, when and how the data was generated) and any pertinent data concerning the variability of the measurement.

As enterprises spread out their operations globally and use a multitude of materials, it becomes critical for the enterprise to maintain a single source of data access. This would ensure that all involved in a collaborative project use the same data fits and views for a specific material, rather than apply their own data fit calculations from input data from different databases, text books, testing services, etc. An example: A dashboard design is handed out by a large OEM to its supplier. The supplier in turn contracts a CAE consultant to help with the design. Other components of the interior may be handled by other OEM suppliers. But, in the final interior design, they all have to fit together. Fidelity of data used in each of these steps would strongly contribute to the robustness of the final design downstream the virtual process. A single data source = efficiency, fidelity and traceability!

Where was the data I am looking at generated? What were the conditions used to generate the data? Was the facility that generated the data accredited to do the tests? A material data set must be consistent in order to be used in a particular application. It is therefore typically composed of fundamental representative material properties that have been generated with minimal artifact and are traceable to an authoritative source. This allows for the objective assessment of the quality of the data for use in a particular application.

The choice of authoritative source depends on where the material data is being applied. In mission critical applications such as VPD, the ability to trace material data to a reliable authoritative source adds significantly to design confidence. For such applications, the appropriate reliable source could be a material supplier's laboratory, an internal lab or an external lab accredited to ISO 17025. In all cases, material data will include the source of the content

Material behavior varies significantly in response to the environment it sees. This can dramatically affect product performance. Material behavior must be understood in the context of the product's environment. Depending on the product and its environment, materials may have simple (linear) or complex behavior. Matereality^® presents a collection of self-consistent material properties that can be used to represent the behavior of a material in a particular product application.

A material data set may have originated in the material supplier's laboratory, an internal lab or an external lab accredited to ISO 17025. In all cases, material data within Matereality^® will include the source of the content.

Variability in behavior can occur for a number of reasons. Lot to lot variations occur because of inconsistencies in the raw material and production processes. These variations have different implications for different stages of the product life cycle. At the product development stage, it may be adequate to have an in-depth consistent 'matereality' and then simply understand the range of variation that can occur. In a production environment, a shallow 'matereality' that monitors a few simple key properties is more realistic. In a failure situation, one reverts to the 'matereality' of a particular product or production batch that is failing as compared to one which is good.

Another source of variability is that of spatial variations in behavior. This is a much more complex problem which is particularly observed in fiber filled plastics. Here, the orientation and concentration of fiber varies throughout the product resulting in extremely large variations in material properties. In a limiting case where it is possible to orient the fibers in a particular direction, there is a maximum in the difference between the primary and secondary directions.

To ensure comparability of data, Matereality^® indicates use of test laboratories that are accredited to ISO 17025, a rigorous quality standard that uses a range of measures to ensure precision and integrity of material data. These include detailed analyses of uncertainty, and the use of proficiency testing programs to verify that participating laboratories produce comparable test results.

Matereality^® provides you with source information that you need to help you determine if the data is pertinent and suitable for your application. Further, it states the quality standards system under which data was generated. Test laboratories accredited to ISO 17025 have demonstrated compliance with rigorous quality standards used by the certifying body to ensure precision and integrity of material data. These include detailed analyses of uncertainty, and the use of proficiency testing programs to verify that participating laboratories produce comparable test results.

Most data can be easily accessed by subscribing and logging onto Matereality^®. There are different tiers of access to material data within Matereality^®. Data is available freely on many materials. If you see material properties in Matereality^® but cannot access them, it may belong in a tier for which you need to have permission from the data owner to view and download this data. Automailers facilitate such requests.

Matereality^® subscription dues can be conveniently billed to your credit card on a monthly or annual basis.

Please call to discuss your enterprise's specific needs. Matereality^® is a scaleable solution. It can be scaled to suit >1000 users across the globe who may be relying on secure access to proprietary, enterprise-owned data.

Matereality^® has been developed in response to the needs of product developers within DatapointLabs' client base. It shares with DatapointLabs the materials expert core resource group. This relationship has allowed Matereality^® to build organization structures for the presentation of data in a form that is best suited to the needs of product developers, whether they work in automotive, electronic, biomedical or consumer products design. If the end use is CAE programs, data is presented electronically, analysis ready, using DatapointLabs' "load & go" technology. Other forms of data delivery are also available, such as plots, tables and model coefficients, over a wide range of unit systems. In later versions, data conversion calculators and data regression programs will accompany the system to permit users to re-analyze and fit data to diverse material models.

Because DatapointLabs will be using Matereality^® as its data delivery model, the system is already populated with a growing collection of design quality material properties generated at DatapointLabs, creating a strong, immediately useable product. This is a key distinguishing characteristic of Matereality^® that separates it from other warehouse solutions that have to be populated from scratch and from databases that are heavily populated with a large number of materials, but with comparative properties that are not suitable for CAE use.

Data within Matereality^® can be viewed in different formats, as suited to your application. You can view the simple properties or complex curves fitted for your CAE application. Further, you can store and retrieve data of interest to you in the format most suitable to your application.