Material selection is a phase in product development where the designers make decisions about what kinds of materials to use in their final product. There are a number of considerations to take into account during this process, including intrinsic qualities of the material, the specs of the project, costs, and factors like sustainability and ethical sourcing. Numerous databases are available to provide project developers with information about common materials on the market and their properties to streamline material selection.
Usually, designers start thinking about what they want to use to fabricate products very early in the design process. They can narrow down their options to general categories like plastics and metals as they start to design the product. As it gets closer to the prototype stage, engineers can start to request samples of materials to examine and may evaluate databases to pick up as much information as possible about available options.
