Incomplete material data can be a major roadblock in simulation workflows - especially when accuracy, multi-physics compatibility, and solver-readiness are critical. The Materials Intelligence capability in Altair® Material Data Center™ (AMDC) addresses this challenge head-on by automatically identifying and filling data gaps, enabling more materials to be reliably used in your CAE processes.
What Is Materials Intelligence?
The Materials Intelligence feature bridges gaps in material data through two complementary approaches:
- Generic data: It identifies a similar, generic material and borrows single-point values or whole curves to fill missing fields.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): It predicts missing data, such as stress–strain curves, using ML models trained on similar existing materials in the database.
These techniques help transform incomplete material records into simulation-ready datasets without compromising traceability or accuracy.
How to Fill Gaps in Material Data Using Materials Intelligence?
Here’s a step-by-step guide to activate Materials Intelligence for filling gaps:
Using Generic Data
- Ensure the Generic Data toggle is enabled in your Preferences (it’s on by default).
- Select a material data set in AMDC.
- Open the material's Details pane and go to Materials Intelligence > Generic data.
- AMDC fills missing properties by borrowing data from a representative generic material. These filled values appear in the Properties tab and are clearly labeled as Generic.
- For curve data, switch to the Plots tab. Curve segments provided by the generic material will also carry the Generic label.
Using Artificial Intelligence
- In Preferences, ensure the Artificial Intelligence option is enabled.
- Select the material you want to enhance and open its Details pane.
- Activate Materials Intelligence > Artificial Intelligence.
- The AI examines similar materials - based on composition and key properties like yield stress, tensile modulus, etc. - and predicts missing values.
- AI-generated data appears in the Plots tab, labeled as AI, and is cross-validated against known material behavior for reliability.
Both methods are seamlessly integrated, and filled values appear directly in the property tables and plots, allowing for immediate simulation use without additional guesswork.
Watch Materials Intelligence in action:
Configuring Materials Intelligence: Global and Local Control
AMDC gives users full control over how surrogate data is applied:
- Globally: Use the Preferences menu to enable or disable gap-filling across all materials in AMDC. By default, all gap-filling methods are enabled.
- Locally: When viewing individual material entries, you can opt to activate or deactivate Materials Intelligence on a case-by-case basis.
This flexibility ensures that surrogate data is used only when appropriate - based on context and simulation requirements - ensuring data integrity and giving engineers confidence in their results.
View and Identify Surrogate Data - Ensuring Traceability
Whenever Materials Intelligence fills in missing data, AMDC maintains full transparency about the data source:
- Manufacturer/Producer: Data directly from the producer, unaltered and not labeled by default.
- Generic: Borrowed data labeled clearly as Generic.
- AI: Portions that were inferred via AI are labeled as AI.
In both Properties and Plots views, each property value or curve segment will display a label indicating its origin - so you'll always know whether it's original, borrowed, or predicted.
Why It Matters?
Materials Intelligence offers a practical and scalable solution to one of the most common bottlenecks in CAE:
- It unlocks the usability of materials that would otherwise be excluded due to incomplete data.
- It supports multi-physics simulations, thanks to complete and consistent property datasets.
- It accelerates workflows by eliminating manual gap-filling and guesswork.
- And most importantly, it preserves data integrity through clear labeling and full traceability.
This not only improves confidence in simulation results but also enhances collaboration and documentation across teams.
Have you integrated Materials Intelligence into your workflow? Has it helped reduce manual data entry or made more materials simulation-ready? Share your experiences and tips below in the comment section!
To access Altair® Material Data Center™, go to - https://materials.altairone.com/page/landing
