Mechanical APDL Basic Analysis Guide - Ansys

9. Click on OK. The dialog box closes and another dialog box appears for defining the constants for the
Nonlinear Isotropic model.
10. Enter the constants associated with the Nonlinear Isotropic model (click on the Help button for information
on these constants).
11. Click on OK. The dialog box closes. Under Material Model Number 1, the following are listed: Linear
Isotropic, Chaboche, and Nonlinear Isotropic. You can then edit any of the data (see Example: Editing
Data in a Material Model (p. 13)).
1.1.4.4.8. Material Model Interface - Miscellaneous Items
Other characteristics of the material model interface are the following:
• Any batch files you use to enter material data will be converted to material models and will appear listed
in the Material Models Defined window of the Define Material Model Behavior dialog box.
• The material model interface does not import data from the ANSYS material library discussed in Using
Material Library Files (p. 15).
1.1.4.5. Using Material Library Files
Although you can define material properties separately for each finite element analysis, ANSYS lets you store
a material property set in an archival material library file, then retrieve the set and reuse it in multiple analyses.
(Each material property set has its own library file.) The material library files also enable several ANSYS users
to share commonly used material property data.
The material library feature offers you other advantages:
• Because the archived contents of material library files are reusable, you can use them to define other,
similar material property sets quickly and with fewer errors. For example, suppose that you have defined
material properties for one grade of steel and want to create a material property set for another grade
of steel that is slightly different. You can write the existing steel material property set to a material library
file, read it back into ANSYS under a different material number, and then, within ANSYS, make the minor
changes needed to define properties for the second type of steel.
• Using the /MPLIB command (Main Menu> Preprocessor> Material Props> Material Library> Library
Path), you can define a material library read and write path. Doing this allows you to protect your material
data resources in a read-only archive, while giving ANSYS users the ability to write their material
data locally without switching paths.
• You can give your material library files meaningful names that reflect the characteristics of the data
they contain. For example, the name of a material library file describing properties of a steel casting
might be STEELCST.SI_MPL. (See Creating (Writing) a Material Library File (p. 16) for an explanation
of file naming conventions.)
• You can design your own directory hierarchy for material library files. This enables you to classify and
catalog the files by material type (plastic, aluminum, etc.), by units, or by any category you choose.
The next few paragraphs describe how to create and read material library files. For additional information,
see the descriptions of the /MPLIB, MPREAD, and MPWRITE commands in the Element Reference.
1.1.4.6. Format of Material Library Files
Material library files are ANSYS command files. The file format supports both linear and nonlinear properties.
You can reuse material library files because the commands in them are written so that, once you read a
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