Material Dialog Box

The Material dialog box helps you manage physical materials. You can work with predefined materials, create custom materials, apply materials to parts, and manage favorites.

To display this dialog box:

Open a part, right-click Material in the FeatureManager design tree, and select Edit Material.
In the Material dialog box, you can double-click a material to automatically apply the material to the model and close the dialog box. You can still click Apply if you want to review the material properties before applying the material.

Material Dialog Box Interface

The left side of the dialog box contains a tree of available material types and materials. Tabs on the right display information about the selected material. If SOLIDWORKS Simulation is added in, more tabs appear.

Search for Materials

You can find materials by using the Search box in the upper left-corner of the Material dialog box. To start a search, enter an alphanumeric character or part of a material name. As you type, the Material dialog box displays matches and the number of results. You can search across all the material libraries. If you sort by category, library, or material, sort order is maintained in the material tree when you use search.

Material Tree

The material tree organizes materials into:
  • Libraries. Initial libraries are SOLIDWORKS Materials and Custom Materials. The materials in SOLIDWORKS Materials are read-only and are shared with SOLIDWORKS Simulation.
  • Categories, for example, Steel, Iron, Plastics.
  • Materials, for example, Aluminum Bronze, Brass, Copper.

SOLIDWORKS Materials

Right-click a material in SOLIDWORKS Materials and select:
Add to Favorites Appends this material to the list of favorites displayed when you right-click Material in the FeatureManager design tree.
Copy Copies the material so that you can paste it in Custom Materials or a library you create.
You can also copy categories and paste them into custom libraries.
New Library Creates an additional library to store copied or customized materials.
Sort by Library Sorts materials by library, category, and material name. The default sorting order.
Sort by Category Sorts materials by category, without listing library names.
Sort by Material Sorts materials by name without categorizing them.

Custom Materials

In Custom Materials or a category you create, you can also select:
Rename Renames the item.
Delete Removes the item.
Move Up Moves the current item up.
Move Down Moves the current item down.
Cut Deletes the item and copies it to the paste buffer.
Paste Pastes the item that you have copied.
New Material Adds a new material to the category.

When you save a custom material to a custom material library, only the material properties of the source material that the custom material is based on are saved and are editable.

You can also copy material categories to custom material libraries.