Control component physical materials

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Control component physical materials.

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After completing this video,

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you'll be able to

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apply a physical material to a component

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and measure component mass properties.

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In fusion,

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let's get started with the supply dataset Utility knife.

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F3D.

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We're going to be talking about physical materials,

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how to measure them,

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and also how to get things like mass properties.

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So the first thing that we want to

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identify is the differences between appearances and materials.

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For this example,

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let's first take a look at the left portion of our housing.

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This looks like it's a shiny metallic finish,

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and if we right click on the component

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and take a look at the component properties,

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We can take a look at what material has been applied.

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We can see here that it's mild steel.

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It shows us the physical materials properties,

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in this case,

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the mass of 55.175 g.

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We also have volume,

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density area,

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and so on.

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Let's go ahead and close that out,

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right click on it,

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and this time,

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let's take a look at the appearance.

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The appearances in this case,

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look to be a gold medal.

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Now this gold medal could potentially be a coating for this component,

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but the physical material that's been applied

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is going to be that mild steel,

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that default material that all components have inside a fusion.

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So this tells me that the appearance of the gold medal has been applied,

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but the physical material is maybe not correct.

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To apply a physical material,

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it's important to understand that it can be applied to all components in a design,

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an individual component,

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or even down to the individual body.

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Keep in mind that applying them at a hierarchy above the current body

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is something that should be understood.

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For example,

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if we go to this body

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and we select physical material.

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In this case,

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I'm gonna go to my metal.

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And I'm gonna simply select aluminum.

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I'm gonna drag the aluminum onto the body,

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body one,

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and select close.

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If I right click on body one

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and go to its properties,

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notice that it has physical material,

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aluminum,

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the appearance is aluminum satin.

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However,

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we know that this isn't correct because it still has this gold appearance.

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If we right click on the component,

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and we go to the component properties.

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When we take a look at our component properties,

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the material here is aluminum.

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The mass has been updated properly,

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however,

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the appearance is still overriding that.

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It's still showing up as that gold appearance.

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So keep in mind that even if you change

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the appearance to be something like an aluminum material,

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that doesn't change the physical properties of your design.

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Another important aspect of working with physical materials other than

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right clicking and taking a look at their properties,

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is understanding where things like the center of mass are.

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As we scroll down,

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we've got information about the bounding box,

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the moment of inertia,

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and the center of mass.

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Finding the center of a mass as a coordinate relative to the coordinate

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system is an important aspect of working with physical materials in our designs.

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We also have an option to display that by going

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to inspect and toggling on the center of mass.

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We can select a specific component

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and get an on-screen indicator or a glyph

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that tells us where the center of mass is for the entire design.

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When working on consumer products,

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especially handheld consumer products,

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understanding the distribution of the mass in your components

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can be a critical aspect of that design process.

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If we see here in the analysis folder,

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we can toggle on and off that center of mass glyph at any point in time.

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Toggling this on and off again can be a

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big indicator when working on handheld consumer product designs.

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So make sure that for the certification,

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you understand not only how to apply physical materials,

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but understand how to use some of these tools like finding the center of mass

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and understand that while appearances may change the look of our design,

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they aren't going to have a direct impact

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on the physical materials that are applied.

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So make sure that you do not only work with

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physical materials but also the appearances of your design.

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Once we're done,

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go ahead and save this before moving on.