ABSTRACT
Prototyping materials often are different from the final product materials, especially for lower fidelity prototypes, due to the differences in project objectives and time constraints in prototyping. Alloy steels can improve strength, hardness, or resistance to corrosion. In terms of plastics, one can select among composites, polycarbonate, nylon, acetal, and ABS. Composite materials are plastics with additives, fillers, and reinforcing agents, such as glass fibers, carbon, or graphite. Abrasion resistance is the ability of a material to withstand mechanical actions such as rubbing and scraping. Some material properties are easy to model and are very useful in product design and development, such as aesthetic, warmth, abrasion, pitch, resilience, and friction modeling. Resilience is the ability to accept large deflection without damage. The chapter presents a case study illustrating a procedure to derive a structure problem into an index for material selection.
