Users (such as members of the Materials Data Management Consortium—MDMC) who need to manage and apply complex, changing, inter-related data will find many new features designed to maximize the productivity and usability of their corporate materials information systems. These features have been developed with guidance from the MDMC and other users.

The new template composite schema completes what is now a comprehensive solution for composite data management. This is integrated with new reference data for composite materials.

Several new features will assist Granta's solution for keeping up-to-date with changing information on regulations, materials & substances. The GRANTA MI:Restricted Substances package helps you to track the relationships between these items to assess and manage risk.

MI:Optimize is a tool for systematic materials selection and cost optimization that is easy for materials teams to configure and for designers to use. There are improvements to usability and analysis capabilities in this release.

See "MI:Optimize (formerly MI:EMO) improvements" below.

For anyone using GRANTA MI as a a single, integrated, easy-to-use source of materials reference data, or anyone for whom GRANTA MI enables publishing of materials information, version 4.0 has features of interest.

Users of steels can now get easy access to an outstanding set of relevant reference data on steels, integrated with a system for in-house data management.

See "Steels data: StahlDat SX, MI-21 " below.

New data on human biological materials is available, together with updated information on materials for cardiovascular and orthopaedic materials, in a system that also enables management of your in-house materials data.

A new MI:Viewer feature helps to keep track of changes to important information stored in a GRANTA MI database. Users can add records, folders, or data tables to a 'watch list'. Changes to any item on this list are reported on a personalized page in MI:Viewer. Example uses for this feature are:

• Receive a notification if new design allowables are generated for your key materials
  
  
• For restricted substances, ensure proactive alerts to the appropriate staff on changes in the status of a substance, material, or legislation (supports proactive risk management).

Tabular data is an important new data type that allows relationships between data in different GRANTA MI records to be established, information about the nature of that relationship to be captured, and the dynamic display of this information in a simple tabular format on the relevant datasheets. Two example applications are the automatic generation of tables describing:

• Composites—the datasheet describing a laminae material will include a table providing details of each layer. Property details for the component materials in a layer are drawn from the separate records for each component and displayed along with data describing how the components are combined and processed for this specific composite
• Restricted substances—a table within a material record (below) shows the restricted substances in the material, any regulations that impact each substance, the nature of the impact (e.g., 'banned', 'regulated', etc...), and a "substance rating" that is a roll-up of these individual impacts

Using tabular data to show relationships between linked restricted substances
and legislations on a material record.

Effective use of functional data is essential in materials engineering, for example, to describe multi-dimensional mechanical properties. This data type 'fits' a complex mathematical function to available test data in order to characterize a materials property across the full range of applicable conditions—e.g., to describe creep with time at different temperatures and strain rates. GRANTA MI can store this data, and any user can open it up and input their required parameters to interpolate the property value for a specific set of conditions.

GRANTA MI 4.0 provides more advanced capabilities in this area. It improves interpolation for data sets with missing points, and providing a new interpolation method (cubic spline) that increases the accuracy with which the functional data is captured and stored. As a result, users can get more value from their materials data.

Enhancements to the core system make it easier to update GRANTA MI databases. Users can now load updated versions of existing data (including Granta reference data modules) into their existing system with minimal disruption to links and analyses that may have been created using the current version. It is also simpler to upgrade the database schema when switching to a new version of GRANTA MI. These changes:

• Enable smooth, effective use of Granta data products that include regular updates (for example, quarterly updates of the Cardiovascular Materials, Orthopaedic Materials, and Restricted Substances data modules)
  
  
• Make it easier for to implement new and enhanced features in GRANTA MI 4.0 and future versions

A new template database schema helps users configure their GRANTA MI database to manage the test and other data that is typical when dealing with composite materials. Users gain from the experience of Material Data Management Consortium members, as this collaborative project guided development of the schema. You can use the schema as it is or adapt it to your needs.

More information »

A high-level sketch of the template composite database schema

GRANTA MI:Optimize (previously known as MI:Enterprise Materials Optimizer) ensures a consistent approach to optimizing materials and manufacturing choices across an enterprise, while helping to increase the quality of these decisions. MI:Optimize has a redesigned selection ‘wizard’ that makes it easier to specify requirements. Improvements have also been made to the the 'Pass/fail report' to make results clearer and enable copy-and-paste connection to Microsoft Excel. These changes will help user organizations by ensuring that:

• More designers use the tool, more often; there is a better chance of corporate material strategies becoming embedded in the design process
  
  
• It is easier to analyze results, scan for ‘near misses’, and fine-tune optimizations; users will see better results, improved quality, and lower costs.

More on MI:Optimize »

MI:Viewer users will now find that record lists that they compile during a web browser session are stored when they close down and recovered for use when they next access GRANTA MI. This will enhance productivity for regular users by making sure that the system remembers some key settings.

A series of changes have been made to the text and Excel importers and exporters available via the MI:Toolbox utility. These changes make it easier to add information to existing data sets and improve support for importing functional data.

Other changes make it easier to maintain the database—for example, to apply user access privileges during bulk import of data, and to quickly move or change attributes for multiple records.

More on MI:Toolbox »

A clever new search capability will be of great value to publishers who wish to provide materials information on-line via a GRANTA MI-hosted system. Such data resources can now be searched by Google and similar search engines, with the publisher choosing what data is shown and what remains hidden. This means publishers can generate more interest in their information resources without exposing all of their data.

The picture below shows a Google search returning a link to the Materials for Medical Devices Database (an on-line information resource hosted by ASM International using GRANTA MI). On clicking through, the Google user sees an abstract that summarizes the relevant record. The full data is available to subscribers only.

"Googling" the Materials for Medical Devices database, powered by GRANTA MI

Other publishing enhancements include improved support for formatting text data on a datasheet—this can now exploit HTML features (for example, lists), rendering longer text entries much more readable. GRANTA MI 4.0 presents a user interface that is slicker, faster, and easier to use than ever before—for example, in the way that the user interacts with the contents tree in the GRANTA MI browser window. Publishers using earlier versions of GRANTA MI to support their information resource should consider upgrading for an improved user experience.

More on GRANTA MI for publishing »

Other minor enhancements

A number of usability and presentation enhancements improve the GRANTA MI experience. These include:

• Copy-and-paste charts for use in other applications
• Any user can now generate a bookmark link for a datasheet or a specific query result
• The overbar indicating the precision of a number is displayed when needed
• The record list can be ordered by record name

A new GRANTA MI data module supports design using composite materials—particularly in the aerospace industry. The Composite Design data module combines data from the well-respected AGATE and NCAMP industry projects. Users can access this resource as a standalone database, alongside other aerospace and energy data, or in an integrated system with their own composite data.

More on the GRANTA MI:Composites package »

Composite design data in GRANTA MI

Two new data modules can now be purchased with GRANTA MI, providing an integrated database containing a wealth of steels data. The modules are:

More on GRANTA MI:Steels package »

StahlDat data in GRANTA MI

The Human Biological Materials data module provides data on the materials (bones, tissue, etc.) that make up the human body. This first release provides mechanical data on specific bones—of great value in modeling for orthopaedic device applications.

The Cardiovascular and Orthopaedic Data Modules have also recently undergone quarterly updates, covering further devices, materials, and coatings in these two areas.

This data, combined with GRANTA MI tools to manage in-house materials data, creates a comprehensive solution for materials information in medical device organizations.

More on the GRANTA MI:Medical package »

Enhancements to the core GRANTA MI materials & process data module include:

• New data on lightweight materials:
  • 117 new “core materials”: 86 honeycombs (Al, Nomex, GRFP, impregnated paper, stainless steel, PC, PP, PEI), 24 foams (PET, PEI, PU, SAN), 7 natural materials (end-grain balsa, cork-board)
  • 10 new SMC/BMC records—covers a wider range of grades
• Revised & updated eco data: the addition of all standard composite manufacturing processes and  new Eco-indicator 99 values (added alongside Eco-indicator 95 values)
• Updates to materials prices for over 3,000 materials
• A new 'Material form attribute'—enables filtering based on material form (e.g., long fiber composites, undirectional composites, wires, etc)

More information on MaterialUniverse »