The material database can be edited by modifying or adding properties of constituent materials through the Material Database dialog.
In the left panel, click to highlight and choose one of the materials in the current GeoDict material database.
In the right panel, under the General tab, the Material Type (Solid, Fluid, Porous), its assigned Color, the Material Topics (e.g., Battery, Electrochemistry), the material Properties, and the Material Description can be edited.
For a Fluid, the density and the dynamic and kinematic viscosity are defined in the Fluid tab. Additionally, Mechanical Properties, Electrochemical Properties, Thermal Conductivity, and Electrical Conductivity can be selected as optional parameters.
Density, Dynamic Viscosity, Kinematic Viscosity, Thermal Conductivity and Electrical Conductivity can be temperature dependent, and the mechanical properties contain the option to add a thermal expansion coefficient.
For Solid materials, only the density must be defined in the Solid tab. Additionally, Mechanical Properties, Electrochemical Properties, Thermal Conductivity, and Electrical Conductivity can be selected as optional parameters.
Density, Thermal Conductivity and Electrical Conductivity can be temperature dependent, and the mechanical properties contain the option to add a thermal expansion coefficient.
Porous materials have the same options as Solid materials, but they additionally allow to define the Permeability and PorosityandTortuosity.
The Porosity and Tortuosity cannot be set to be temperature dependent
Depending on the chosen Material Type, the second tab is called Solid (for Solid and Pore) or Fluid (for Fluid). Here, the density and, for fluids, the dynamic and kinematic viscosity are defined. Multiple Material Laws can be created for different application cases or physical conditions. For example, the physical properties may change for varying pressure values. Thus, for different pressure values an individual material law can be defined.
In the Density Selection panel select a material law from the drop-down menu.
Below, the current values are shown and can be edited. The selected material law can be deleted with Delete and a new name can be given with Rename.
To create a new material law, type its name in the Add Material Law box and click Add. Then, the values can be entered below and a material law with the entered name is listed under Edit Material Law.
From the Parameter drop-down menu choose if the density (and viscosity for fluids) should be temperature dependent or not. In the latter case, simply enter in the corresponding values.
For the parameter Temperature, a table allows to enter the corresponding density and viscosity values for different temperature values. This table can be saved as ASCII *.txt file and such a file with values can also be loaded into the material database.
Under Mechanical Properties, multiple material laws can be defined. Later, one of them can be selected to run a simulation. For further information about how to define the Mechanical Properties of materials, refer to the ElastoDict user guide.
In the Electrochemical Properties section, the parameters are set depending on the role of the material in a lithium-ion battery cell. First, select the role from the drop-down menu.
Enter the parameters if necessary. For some roles (e.g., Separator), no parameters need to be entered. More details about the parameters can be found in the BatteryDictuser guide.
Thermal conductivity is used, e.g., in ConductoDict and can be temperature dependent or not. It can be isotropic, transverse isotropic or orthotropic and the material laws can be edited as described in section Mechanical Properties. More information on Thermal conductivity can be found in the ConductoDict user guide.
You can decide between Permeability, which is independent or dependent of temperature. Leave Parameter on None for the temperature-independent permeability and choose Temperature for the temperature-dependent case. You can enter the constant permeability value in the field Permeability / (m2). In the latter case, a table appears in which the interpolation points for the temperature-dependent permeability curve can be entered.
Additionally, you can define if the Permeability is the same in all directions (Isotropic) or can be different in X, Y, and Z direction (Anisotropic). In the figure below you can see the Permeability tab for a temperature-dependent anisotropic permeability.
Please refer to section Introduction to Permeability of the FlowDict user guide for more information about Permeability in general.
You can enter a percentage value for Porosity and a constant value for the Tortuosity Factor of the Pore-Space. Since GeoDict 2025, it is also possible to define the Tortuosity Factor of a Solid Phase
In the metadata tab, custom properties can be defined, e.g., it is possible to add new physical properties. They can be accessed, e.g. through a Python interface.
Click on Edit Parameters to open the Edit Parameter-Map dialog. Enter a Key, a Unit, and a Value for this key in the chosen unit. By clicking on OK, the metadata will also be saved in the text file for the material as Parameter Map. Alternatively, you can load a text file containing a table with metadata to the Edit Parameter-Map dialog by clicking on Load....
