Materials Database
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A materials database is a database used to store experimental, standards or design data for materials in such a way that they can be retrieved efficiently by humans or computer programs.
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[edit] Background
Fast access and exchange of materials data between research, design and manufacturing teams working on different sites worldwide, is a challenging issue to be addressed during the product cycle in materials engineering. Another important issue is safeguarding high investments made into materials research, meaning that experimental data must be properly conserved, easily be located and quickly be retrieved. Materials databases (MDBs) are powerful tools to address these problems. The development of factual materials databases degan significantly in the 1980's with a leading standardisation role being taken by CODATA, ASTM E49 and the British Standards i.e. BSI AMT4/-/6.
[edit] Different types
Various categories of MDBs exist for different requirements, for example containing standards data on metallic alloys and plastics or more complex database applications needed for design analysis. MDBs are basic elements for establishing knowledge based and expert systems .
[edit] Web enabled
With the emergence of the Internet, the capability of MDBs has further increased. Web-enabled MDBs provide a more centralized management and conservation of the data. Finding and accessing the required data is much faster than to search for them in a traditional manner, e.g. from handbooks or Microsoft Excel files. In particular the dissemination of public research results has improved significantly, as the data are accessible over the World Wide Web. However, only a few web-enabled materials applications exist at present on the market. Examples are
- the Materials databases of NIMS (National Institute for Materials Science) in Japan, which offer a lot of data.
- Matweb which is a freely accessible online database with technical data sheets for over 55,000 materials.
