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Makeitfrom.com – Material Properties Database

by rayshan on 5/7/23, 5:23 PM with 14 comments

• by fwlr on 5/8/23, 2:00 AM

  It might be a bit difficult to navigate this site if you don’t know the intricate details of material sub-types - you’ll probably recognize the top-level categories and then get stumped by the subcategories (hybrid austenitic-ferritic wrought cold finished…? ).

  Having worked in a machine shop, here are some common engineering materials you might be familiar with:

  Stainless steel https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Cold-Finished...

  Aerospace-grade aluminum https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/7075-T6-Alumi...

  Tool steel (this is what most cutters, drills, punches, blades etc for cutting and milling other metals are made of) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Hardened-M2-T...

  Tungsten carbide (what high-quality cutting tools are made of - usually you have a small bit with three or four cutting edges, mounted in some fashion on tool steel holders) https://www.makeitfrom.com/material-properties/Tungsten-Carb...

• by bigger_cheese on 5/8/23, 3:58 AM

  Nice Site I studied Materials Engineering - graduated some years ago now - back in the day we had a cdrom program we had to pay for a license key as undergrads to gain access to a material properties database - this site seems like a much more modern version.

  As a top level category may want to add composites - I note wood was under Polymers but could not find CFRP, Fibreglass (GRP) etc. Also Graphene (I did my thesis on synthesizing this material so particular interest to me...)

  If you could generate charts like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_selection#Ashby_plots for a selected list of materials that would be a useful feature.

• by buffington on 5/8/23, 3:48 PM

  I'm almost uncomfortable saying this: I wish that each entry linked to suppliers for that entry. I wouldn't even mind if the site made money off affiliate links or similar. As a hobbyist, the hardest "material" related challenge I face is where to even buy it, let alone at prices that aren't insane.

• by alanbernstein on 5/8/23, 3:43 AM

  Based on the URL, I expected a material lookup app where you enter design constraints, and get a list of suitable materials. With each added constraint you could get a shorter list, plus a suggestion for new ones to add that narrow the list further. Maybe not super useful for people who already know what they're doing, but it could be interesting.

• by routinemachine on 5/8/23, 4:29 AM

  Nice resource; would it be possible to add citations to the data sources?

• by zokier on 5/8/23, 8:31 AM

  High-end plastics are intersting category just because they can be so exotic. You don't really see or hear about things made of stuff like Celazole etc so it is difficult to get a grasp how they compare to more commonplace materials

• by keizo on 5/8/23, 2:34 AM

  cool! It would be interesting to connect with an llm... as it goes these days.