Re-use materials from other projects

Soil materials, as well as plate materials are sometimes used in more than one Plaxis project file, for instance, when analysing alternatives or for models located close to each other. In Plaxis software the global material database can be used as a repository of material data sets. Then, these material data sets can be used for new projects.

The procedure described below covers the following topics:

• changing the global material database of a project
• creating a new global material database
• add existing material data sets to the global material database

Note that the global material database can be created and used to add material data sets, such as for soils and interfaces, plates, embedded beam rows (or embedded beams in 3D), geogrids, beams (only in 3D) and anchors.

Change global material database

The steps to change the global material database are explained in detail below:

1. Start a new project in Plaxis (or load an existing project);
2. Open the material sets window and expand the global materials (the current location of the global material database can be seen below);
3. Click on Select… to change the current global material database;
4. Browse to the location of the global material database that is intended to be used;
5. Select the global material file (*.matdb), e.g. Sands_only.matdb and click on Open.

Create a new global material database

Sometimes there is no existing global material database or a new one is required. The steps to create a new global material database are explained in detail below:

1. Start a new project in Plaxis;
2. Open the material sets window and expand the global materials;
3. Click on Select… to open the window of global material database location;
4. Browse to the location in which the new global material database will be placed (this can also be a network location);
5. Create a new folder and name it accordingly, e.g. Global;
6. Specify a filename, e.g. sands_only.matdb;
7. Now the global material database for e.g. Soil and interfaces is changed and the list of the global materials should be empty.

Adding existing material data sets to the global material database

The steps to add existing materials to this global material database are:

1. Open a project, which includes the material data set(s);
2. Make sure that you have selected the new global material database (checks step of the previous procedure);
3. Use one of these methods to copy all or individual datasets from the local project material database to the global material database:
   • button to copy only the selected material data set from the project material database to the global database;
   • button to copy all material data sets from the project material database to the global material database;
   • use drag-and-drop to copy individual material data sets from the project material database to the global one;
4. Perform steps 1-3 for different projects from which you need the material data sets.

For a new project, you can now select the new global database and copy any of the global material data sets in the project material database.

An example of a Global material database can be seen below:

Note that using any material database, which is included in a project folder (data.plxmat) as a global material database should be avoided: unexpected behaviour might be noticed (e.g. material assignments might be lost in the original project).
Instead, the materials used in this specific project can be copied to a global material database (*.matdb-file), following the steps mentioned above.