ANSYS, Inc. a global innovator of simulation software and technologies designed to optimize product development processes, and Granta Design Ltd. the leader in materials information management, announced the interoperability of their systems.

ANSYS Workbench users in engineering design now can easily import and apply critical materials data from GRANTA MI, Granta's powerful 'material intelligence' system. This allows engineers in industries like aerospace, defense, energy and medical devices to use the best available information in product analysis and design. The technology enabling this integration is bundled with all GRANTA MI installations.

"This collaboration addresses a requirement for our customers," said Mike Wheeler, Vice President and General Manager at ANSYS, Inc. "Companies seeking to improve design, safety and reliability and reduce cost want to manage and use their material property data more effectively. These users want to use this data within their well-established workflows and have direct access to it from within their ANSYS Workbench applications."

Granta and the Material Data Management Consortium (MDMC) developed GRANTA MI to enable enterprise management and application of materials data. Consortium members include ASM International, Honeywell, Rolls-Royce, NASA, Los Alamos National Laboratories, and the U.S. Navy. GRANTA MI lets materials experts create and administer a corporate materials information resource, combining and maintaining data from in-house tests, proprietary sources and external references. Other engineers can easily access and apply any data that they have permission to use. ANSYS users now can import this data quickly to their familiar ANSYS Workbench environment. GRANTA MI ensures data consistency, accuracy and traceability across the enterprise.

ANSYS users also will benefit from GRANTA MI's unrivalled third-party reference data collection, including: MMPDS aerospace metals and fasteners (formerly MIL-HDBK-5), MIL-HDBK-17, composites, ESDU aerospace metallic materials data handbook, ASM data, CAMPUS and IDES plastics data, RAPRA chemical resistance data, NIST lead-free solders and Granta's broad MaterialUniverse database.

"This development widens access to Granta's unique material intelligence," commented Dr. David Cebon, Managing Director at Granta. "We are delighted to work with an industry leader like ANSYS in combining the benefits of high quality materials information and computer-aided engineering simulation."