MSC Sinda for Patran supports external material definitions. They are under MSC Sinda icon which is at the right of the Patran top menu, or inside Convection Correlation Lib. MSC Sinda and Patran have no unit actually. Users are responsible to keep the unit consistent among Geometry, Material, Property, Loads and Control Parameters in the Analysis form. Users can use any combination of units, as long as they are consistent in the whole model.

But users need to define the material unit first before the external materials are used. The model units are defined or modified by Material Units form. The SI unit system is the default one. Once the material units are defined, they are automatically saved into Patran database. That is to say, they are saved with the model. Next time when you open the same model, you will automatically get these material units set up back.

There are 2 kinds of material lib forms --- Material Lib and Fluid Lib. Fluid Lib is a subset of Material Lib. By default, they refer 2 excel files in C:\SINDAG\Materials ---- Mat_AIAA.xls and Mat_Fluids.xls. You can also browse to other directories to reference any user defined material excel files.

User can create/add/modify materials in the excel files. By double clicking the type column in the excel file, user can define any materials. A Mat_Template.xlt file is also provided for user to create a new material excel file.