Support for Anisotropic and/or Orthotropic Materials

william_lacey140

I understand that nearly everything we make is made from an isotropic material (i.e. steel, plastic, etc.), but are there plans to allow values of anisotropic/orthotropic materials for us oddballs that still design with materials like wood and plywood? I know in another popular 3D program, we have the ability to define values unique to each axis, and then define the orientation of each axis on the parts. Just wondering if that is a future plan for OnShape or not.

MichaelPascoe

Mate connectors is what Onshape uses to define a local axis or coordinate system. You can use the data from these however you like with the native features or custom features.

What exactly are you trying to do? We can provide examples for you.

GregBrown

I suspect this is regarding material properties for simulation… but perhaps you can share some more info then we can answer properly. 

william_lacey140

Yes, for simulation purposes materials like wood have different values for strength (i.e tension, compression, elastic modulus, etc.) depending on the direction of the load applied in relation to the direction of the grain (i.e. perpendicular to the grain, parallel to the grain). As it stands, the values of the wood materials in the standard library are all zeros. The only one that has a value is the density, so I can calculate weight, but I would not be able to perform a simulation analysis.

martin_kopplow

The same goes for some 3D-Printed materials, which have different properties due to the layered process of printing. As these get more common, it would be good, if they could also be simulated a bit more precise.