Digital tools for material selection in product design

Abstract

The increasing number of normalized materials, promoters and users led to a significant amount and diversity of databases and software for material selection, presenting differentiating abilities for the materials selection process. The aim of the present study is the critical analysis of the digital tools for material selection, trying to answer to a few important questions, such as What kind of digital tools exist? How do they work? What properties determine the selection? and What kind of information results from the selection? To materialize this useful and innovative investigation, a bibliographical search was carried out on selection methods, databases, and software for material selection. About three hundred software, databases and website references were collected and, after a previous analysis, 87 were selected for this study. All the relevant information about digital tools was organized in tables, including the name, user conditions, number of materials, “materials family or class”, selection paths, website address, resulting information and a descriptive text. The digital tool’s data on the tables were comparatively analysed. The capabilities and limitations of the existent digital tools, together with the aspects to be developed, are discussed. The availability of the information here reported will be very helpful for designers, engineer students and all kind of professionals performing materials selection for product design.