Material Properties Question

[jasonhomrighaus]

Ive been trying to do some simulations and I am finding that almost none of the common grades of steel are available in the materials list, or if they are it is totally unclear which they are.

Im not talking exotics either but things like;

ASTM A331, AISI 4140 for round bar

ASTM A513 (1020-1026) for Tubes

ASTM A513, 1010 structural grade

A1011Plate

ASTM A500 Grade B for Tubes

A-514 / T1 Plate

ASTM A686, AISI W1 Drill Rod

ASTM A681, QQ-T-570, AISI O1 Drill Rod

ASTM A108

1045 TGP Precision Steel Round

ASTM A322 and ASTM A304, 8620 Hot Roll Alloy Steel

These are what is readily available on the market.  Some of the Stuff in the 360 library I cant even find online specs for let alone a source to purchase.

Am I missing something or is there somewhere to get these common materials?

[Anonymous]

Its pretty typical to create custom materials for specific needs in any FEA program. But you may not have to depending on the simulation type.

If your simulation is linear elastic you really only need to make sure you choose a steel with the correct elastic modulus (they should all be really close so this should be east). The yield and ultimate strengths are only used for safety factor calculation so just ignore those. This goes for any material class with a constant modulus across the different grades (i/e AL 5052, AL 6061...etc).

If this is a non-linear simulation then you should really be building the stress strain curves or bilinear curves yourself based on material data.

Edit: these properties can typically be found on vendor websites and sources like matweb.