2D:Dialog MaterialDatabase

Dialog: Material Database

Use this dialog to assign material properties from the database to the selected construction element.

The material data are organized by sources and by catalogs (1).
The source indicates the institution which has provided the data. You may select "All sources" in order to see all materials, or you may select only one source if only a subgroup of materials is relevant to your investigation.
For each source, the data have been organized in catalogs which comprise a specific category of building materials each (e.g. "Plasters and Mortars", "Insulation Materials", etc). Select "All catalogs" to view all materials of the selected source.

The materials contained in the selected sources and catalogs are displayed in the materials list (2). You may sort the materials by name or by one of the basic material parameters.

The basic material parameters are displayed within the list, the optional data (3) are displayed in a graph panel on the right side of the screen. Uncheck the option "Show optional data" to remove the panel and make more room for the list.
For some materials typical thicknesses are specified in a separate list box, but they are not used in the two-dimensional WUFI version.

Select the material to be assigned and press the "Assign" button (4), or simply double-click the desired material. This will transfer the material data as a new list item to the dialog "Allocation of Properties (Material) from where it can be assigned to an element of the building component.

For a discussion of the material data, please consult the topic Material Data.

The predefined materials in the database are read-only and cannot be edited. However, you can edit the material data once they have been transferred to the allocation list and you can add your own materials to the database.

Please note: the database contains typical data for typical materials which are therefore suited to the investigation of typical situations.
The large variations often found in different batches of the same material or in equivalent materials of different manufacturers, and the influence of different standards of workmanship applied in different cases may lead to variations in the hygrothermal behavior of the investigated components.
When comparing simulations with real-life cases or drawing far-reaching (and maybe expensive) conclusions from simulations, you should be aware of possible sensitive reactions of the results on uncertainties or variations in the input data. It may be necessary to determine some input data very precisely to get a reliable result, while other input data may have no discernible effect on the results. Of course, you can use WUFI to perform a sensitivity analysis and to determine how sensitively the result depends on variations in the input data.