Ansys Materials 2026 R1: Design With Certainty, Simulate With Precision

For more than two decades, Ansys Materials solutions have empowered engineers and organizations to centralize materials information, systematically select optimal materials, and connect materials data across the simulation digital thread. By continuously innovating based on customer feedback, Ansys Granta products have enabled customers to achieve significant efficiency gains, streamline materials data workflows, reduce duplicate testing, and provide engineers with accurate, simulation-ready data.

Granta 2026 R1 offers significant enhancements focused on three main pillars: seamlessly connecting materials data through the simulation digital thread, providing powerful user experience improvements for faster material insights, and expanding data coverage. This release introduces Connected Materials, an Ansys-hosted data offering that provides direct access to high-quality materials data from within key Ansys solvers. The first 2026 release expands Ansys Granta MI materials intelligence platform capabilities by introducing enhanced visualization tools, extended configuration for integrations, and comprehensive data updates across metals, polymers, composites, and electromagnetics.

Materials Data in the Simulation Digital Thread

Connecting materials data across the simulation workflow is essential for enabling engineers to design with certainty and simulate with precision. Granta 2026 R1 strengthens these connections with new capabilities that bridge atomistic simulation, materials management, and particle-level analysis.

• Connected Materials: A new Ansys-hosted data offering that provides materials data directly from within Ansys Discovery 3D product simulation software, Ansys Sherlock electronics reliability prediction software, and Ansys Zemax OpticStudio optical system design and analysis software. Engineers can easily find and select materials by name, properties, or simulation model through a unified interface. Powerful data add-ons are available for all common engineering materials, electromagnetics, and commercially available polymers, with free starter data for all users.
• Battery calendering workflow integration: A connected workflow now supports simulation and scale-up of battery calendering manufacturing processes. Synopsys QuantumATK enables atomistic-scale simulation to generate parameters for Ansys Rocky particle dynamics simulation software bond models, with export to the Granta MI platform for material property management and storage, enabling engineers to curate materials records with simulated properties from QuantumATK and in-house data. Property data is then exported to Rocky software, which is used to simulate the densification and compaction behavior of the electrode layer during calendering. This repeatable, reusable workflow enables manufacturing engineers to reliably predict how the manufacturing process will perform, helping them understand key process parameters and providing the insights needed to drive process improvement decisions.
• NX Materials Gateway enhancements: Material cards can now accept parameter inputs for assignment, and the gateway respects contextual selection to streamline assignment to relevant bodies.
• MI Materials Gateway customization: New options let administrators set default exporters, custom URL links, and Browse Tree filters. Users can configure Quick Search defaults, add Record Name filters to results, and hide toolbars or columns for a simplified view. A default theme can now be applied for all users across the organization.

Creating a Better User Experience in Granta MI Software

An intuitive user experience drives productivity and adoption across the enterprise. Granta 2026 R1 introduces powerful visualization and comparison tools that enable faster, clearer material insights, as well as other enhancements that help users become more efficient.

• Side-by-side record comparison: Following its introduction in 2025 R2, users can now compare up to 10 records or versions with enhanced tools that include color shading and value-difference icons to highlight what is materially different, streamlining the comparison process.
• Advanced visualization with radar plots: Beyond comparing text properties, MI Explore now supports radar plots for comparing materials across multiple properties at a glance. This multidimensional visualization reduces the need to manually compile charts, enabling engineers to quickly assess candidates and identify optimal materials.
• Enhanced scatter plots: Scatter plots now support Short Text and Discrete Text attributes, such as material grades or classes, providing greater flexibility in visual analytics and making it easier to analyze categorical data alongside numerical properties.
• Record Tree browsing: A new Record Tree app enables engineers to navigate database hierarchies and explore relationships between records, providing deeper insights into materials data structures and connections.
• Personalized themes: One MI and MI Materials Gateway now offer three user-selectable themes, including dark and light modes, enhancing accessibility and reducing eye strain across diverse teams.
• MI Schema Editor improvements: New capabilities include management of smart and static record link groups, support for display names in multiple languages, the addition of numeric and discrete parameters, and import/export of help files, exporter files, and configuration files.
• MI Data Flow scalability: New pagination controls improve performance when loading a large number of data flows, supporting organizations that manage complex workflows and growing data demands.

Expanded Data Coverage and New Capabilities

High-quality, simulation-ready data is the foundation of accurate analysis. Granta 2026 R1 delivers substantial expansions across materials databases, enabling engineers to make data-driven decisions with confidence.

• Metals, polymers, and composites: The coverage of commercial grades of polymer records has been increased with new simulation-ready, temperature-dependent properties from leading suppliers. Metal records have been enhanced with calculated data for key simulation properties, and ASME BPVC II-D data has been updated to the 2025 edition with Ansys LS-DYNA nonlinear dynamics structural simulation software export for selected models. Composites data for laminates, resins, and fibers has been enhanced to enable search and selection on fiber-specific properties.
• Electromagnetics and specialty materials: Electromagnetics data continues to grow with new electrical steels from voestalpine, plus new PCB grades and magnetic materials from manufacturers. Aerospace data includes MMPDS-2025 updates with new aluminum and nickel alloy records, revised fatigue curves, and new coatings. Medical data adds new 510(k) and PMA devices, as well as PMA supplements.
• Sustainability and regulatory compliance: The new cross-database analysis enables engineers to assess bills of materials with records stored across Granta MI databases. Data updates include the new EU Cosmetic Products Regulation; legislation updates for EU REACH, TSCA, and IAEG; and expanded restricted substances data with SMILES data where available.

Accelerate Innovation With Granta Software

Granta 2026 R1 represents a step forward in connecting materials data across the simulation digital thread, providing engineers with powerful tools to design with certainty and simulate with precision. From the new Connected Materials offering to enhanced visualization capabilities and expanded data, this release empowers teams to work more efficiently and make better-informed materials decisions.

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