Granta Design announced the release of CES Selector(TM) 2014, a new version of the PC software that enables materials experts and product development teams to find and apply materials property data. This year, an upgraded user interface helps users to find the materials data that they need faster, so that they can plot and compare properties and select the right materials. Enhanced tools for materials replacement and substitution mean that engineers can quickly identify and explore alternatives for an underperforming material, or one that has become obsolete or expensive. New and extended data makes it easier to match materials to applications and improves coverage of plastics, biopolymers, metals, and composites.

The latest version makes navigating, searching, and exploring materials information even more straightforward, whether from the MaterialUniverse(TM) data, which covers the full range of engineering materials in nearly 4000 generic data sheets, or one of the more specialist reference datasets, which provide detailed properties for specific material grades or designations. A new homepage makes it much easier to see what data is available, and to navigate straight to the information that is needed. New tools help engineers to quickly compare one family to another, for example, to answer questions like "why use PBT rather than PET?".

For material substitution, replacement, and equivalency projects, the "Find Similar" Tool introduced last year has been enhanced based on user feedback. It allows materials groups to respond quickly to disruptions in material supply, regulatory issues, increasing costs, or obsolescence, by quickly finding alternative materials with similar property profiles. The latest version allows users to customize and fine tune these calculations.

CES Selector provides a suite of graphical tools and data to support systematic materials selection. These build on the well-known methods developed by Granta founder Professor Mike Ashby at Cambridge University. In 2014, enhanced filtering options make it even quicker to specify design constraints. New treatment of processability also helps engineers to focus on plastics or metals based on processes that are commonly used for their manufacture.

Data on polymers has been significantly enhanced. In particular, the latest version of IDES Plastics and the new CAMPUS and M-Base dataset that contains the full set of data from CAMPUS and the 'Materials Data Center' provides information on over 30,000 polymer and over 600 biopolymer grades. Enhancements to the data structure simplify selection based on the target applications and key features identified by the polymer manufacturers.

There is also updated data on metals and composites, with the latest version of ESDU MMDH (design strength data on aerospace alloys), and Firehole Composites (with datasheets for nearly 400 continuous fiber reinforced polymer systems).

In making today's announcement, Dr. Charlie Bream, Product Manager for CES Selector at Granta Design, was clear that the new release would bring immediate benefits. "By making it easier and quicker than ever before to find and apply the right materials data," he explained, "materials experts and product development teams will not just find it easier to make the right decisions first time, but will be able to rapidly respond to changing design requirements, new regulations that could render current materials obsolete, or supply-chain disruptions."