There are hundreds of polymer materials stored in the plastics Default Database. You can sort them by their official acronym of the family they belong to, or by the material manufacturer.
To create a custom polymer material, you can copy a similar material stored in the Default Database, modify its properties, and add it to the User-defined Database for subsequent use.
To create a custom polymer material:
- In the PlasticsManager tree, under Material, right-click Polymer, and click Open Database.
-
In the Polymer dialog box:
-
Click Default Database. Select a material, preferably from the plastics family that the custom material belongs to. For example, select the first material under ABS (Generic material of ABS).
The check box next to the material name is highlighted.
- Click Copy.
- Click User-defined Database.
All custom defined materials are stored in the User-defined Database.
-
Under Plastics Database, select the plastics family to add the custom material to, for example ABS.
To add your own plastics family, click
Add Material 
. Type a name for the new plastics family. The new family of polymer materials appears under the
Plastics Database tab.
- Click Paste.
A clone of the material appears under ABS.
-
To edit the properties of the cloned material, click Edit
.
In the Polymer Product Manager dialog box, you can edit any material property you want to change. For example, you can rename the polymer in Polymer Product, and customize the numerical value for Melt Temperature. All fields of material properties are customizable.
- Click OK.
To export a custom material to an Excel file format, click Export Products 
, and click .
To import a custom material in the User-defined Database (saved in .xls or .bin format), click Import Plastic Material 
.