Project materials such as soil and interfaces, discontinuities, plates, geogrids, embedded beams, cable bolts and anchors are sometimes used in more than one PLAXIS project file, for instance, when analysing alternatives or for models located close to each other. When using PLAXIS, the global material database can be used as a repository of material data sets, which can be re-used for new projects.
The procedure described below covers the following topics:
Note that the global material database can be created and used to add material data sets, such as for soils and interfaces, plates, embedded beams, geogrids, beams (only in 3D), anchors, etc.
The steps to change the global material database are explained in detail below:
Sometimes there is no existing global material database or a new one is required. The steps to create a new global material database are explained in detail below:
Now the global material database for e.g. Soil and interfaces is changed and the list of the global materials should be empty.
The steps to add existing materials to this global material database are:
You can now select the new global database and copy any global material data sets in the project material database for a new project.
An example of a Global material database can be seen below:
Figure 3a. Example of using the global material database with PLAXIS CONNECT Edition V22 (and later)Figure 3b. Example of using the global material database with PLAXIS CONNECT Edition V20 and V21
Note that using any material database, which is included in a project folder (data.plxmat) as a global material database should be avoided: unexpected behaviour might be noticed (e.g. material assignments might be lost in the original project). Instead, the materials used in this specific project can be copied to a global material database (*.matXdb-file for V22 or *.matdb-file for V20 and V21), following the steps mentioned above.
How to define and edit a material via the command line [Tips and Tricks]
Materials overview in the Model explorer [Tips and Tricks]