Can I parameterize ANSYS Mechanical material assignments?

So we have known for a long time that we can parameterize material properties in the Engineering Data screen. That works great if we want to adjust the modulus of a material to account for material irregularities. But what if you want to change the entire material of a part from steel to aluminum? Or if you have 5 different types of aluminum to choose, on several different parts, and you want to run a Design Study to see what combination of materials is the best? Well, then you do this. The process includes some extra bodies, some Named Selections, and a single command snippet.
The first thing to do is to add a small body to your model for each different material that you want to swap in and out, and assign your needed material to them. You’ll have to add the materials to your Engineering Data prior to this. For my example I added three cubes and just put Frictionless supports on three sides of each cube. This assures that they are constrained but not going to cause any stresses from thermal loads if you forget and import a thermal profile for “All Bodies”.

Next, you make a Named Selection for each cube, named Holder1, Holder2, etc. This allows us to later grab the correct material based on the number of the Holder.

You also make a Named selection for each group of bodies for which you want to swap the materials. Name these selections as MatSwap1, MatSwap2, etc.

The command snippet goes in the Environment Branch. (ex. Static Structural, Steady-State Thermal, etc.)

!###############################################################################################################################
! MATSWAP.MAC
! Created by Joe Woodward at PADT,Inc.
! Created on 2/12/2016
!
! Usage: Create Named Selections, Holder1, Holder2, etc.,for BODIES using the materials that you want to use.
! Create Named Selections called MatSwap1, MatSwap2, etc. for the groups of BODIES for which you want to swap materials.
! Set ARG1 equal to the Holder number that has the material to give to MatSwap1.
! Set ARG2 equal to the Holder number that has the material to give to MatSwap2.
! And so on....
! A value of 0 will not swap materials for that given group.
!
! Use as is. No Modification to this command snippet is necessary.
!###############################################################################################################################
/prep7
*CREATE,MATSWAP,MAC
*if,arg1,NE,0,then
 *get,isthere,COMP,holder%arg1%,TYPE
 *get,swapgood,COMP,matswap%ARG2%,TYPE
 *if,isthere,eq,2,then
 esel,s,,,holder%arg1%
 *get,newmat,elem,ELNEXT(0),ATTR,MAT
 !swap material for Body 1
 *if,swapgood,eq,2,then
 esel,s,,,matswap%ARG2%
 emodif,all,mat,newmat
 *else
 /COM,The Named Selection - MatSwap%ARG2% is not set to one or more bodies
 *endif
 *else
 /COM,The Named Selection Holder%ARG1% is not set to one or more bodies
*endif
*endif
*END
MATSWAP,ARG1,1 !Use material from Holder1 for Swap1
MATSWAP,ARG2,2 !Use material from Holder1 for Swap2
MATSWAP,ARG3,3 !Use material from Holder1 for Swap3
MATSWAP,ARG4,4 !Use material from Holder1 for Swap4
MATSWAP,ARG5,5 !Use material from Holder1 for Swap5
MATSWAP,ARG6,6 !Use material from Holder1 for Swap6
MATSWAP,ARG7,7 !Use material from Holder1 for Swap7
MATSWAP,ARG8,8 !Use material from Holder1 for Swap8
MATSWAP,ARG9,9 !Use material from Holder1 for Swap9

alls
/solu

Now, each of the Arguments in the Command Snippet Details corresponds to the ‘MatSwap’ Name Selection of the same number. ARG1 controls the material assignment for all the bodies in the MatSwap1 name selection. The value of the argument is the number of the ‘Holder’ body with the material that you want to use. A value of zero leaves the material assignment alone and does not change the original material assignment for the bodies of that particular ‘MatSwap’ Named Selection. There is no limit on the number of ‘Holder’ bodies and materials that you can use, but there is a limit of nine ‘MatSwap’ groups that you can modify, because there are only nine ARG variables that you can parameterize in the Command Snippet details.

You can see how the deflection changes for the different material combinations. These three steps, holder bodies, Named Selections, and the command snippet above, will give you design study options that were not available before. Hopefully I’ll have an even simpler way in the future. Stay tuned.