#### 8.8.3.1 IfcMaterial

| Matériau
| Material

IfcMaterial is a homogeneous or inhomogeneous substance that can be used to form elements (physical products or their components).

IfcMaterial is the basic entity for material designation and definition; this includes identification by name and classification (via reference to an external classification), as well as association of material properties (isotropic or anisotropic) defined by (subtypes of) IfcMaterialProperties. An instance of IfcMaterial may be associated to an element or element type using the IfcRelAssociatesMaterial relationship. The assignment might either be direct as a single material information, or via

- a material layer set
- a material profile set
- a material constituent set

An IfcMaterial may also have presentation information associated. Such presentation information is provided by IfcMaterialDefinitionRepresentation, associating curve styles, hatching definitions or surface colouring/rendering information to a material.

> HISTORY New entity in IFC4

> IFC4 CHANGE The attributes Description and Category have been added.

XSD Specification:

<xs:element name="IfcMaterial" type="ifc:IfcMaterial" substitutionGroup="ifc:IfcMaterialDefinition" nillable="true"/>
<xs:complexType name="IfcMaterial">
<xs:complexContent>
<xs:extension base="ifc:IfcMaterialDefinition">
<xs:attribute name="Name" type="ifc:IfcLabel" use="optional"/>
</xs:extension>
</xs:complexContent>
</xs:complexType>

EXPRESS Specification:

ENTITY IfcMaterial

| SUBTYPE OF IfcMaterialDefinition;

Name | : | IfcLabel;
Description | : | OPTIONAL IfcText;
Category | : | OPTIONAL IfcLabel;

| INVERSE

END_ENTITY;

EXPRESS-G diagram

Attribute Definitions:

Name | : | Name of the material. EXAMPLE A view definition may require Material.Name to uniquely specify e.g. concrete or steel grade, in which case the attribute Material.Category could take the value 'Concrete' or 'Steel'. NOTE Material grade may have different meaning in different view definitions, e.g. strength grade for structural design and analysis, or visible appearance grade in architectural application. Also, more elaborate material grade definition may be associated as classification via inverse attribute HasExternalReferences.
Description | : | Definition of the material in more descriptive terms than given by attributes Name or Category. IFC4 CHANGE The attribute has been added at the end of attribute list.
Category | : | Definition of the category (group or type) of material, in more general terms than given by attribute Name. EXAMPLE A view definition may require each Material.Name to be unique, e.g. for each concrete or steel grade used in a project, in which case Material.Category could take the values 'Concrete' or 'Steel'. IFC4 CHANGE The attribute has been added at the end of attribute list.

Inheritance Graph:

ENTITY IfcMaterial

| ENTITY IfcMaterialDefinition

| INVERSE

AssociatedTo | : | SET [0:?] OF IfcRelAssociatesMaterial FOR RelatingMaterial;

| ENTITY IfcMaterial

Name | : | IfcLabel;
Description | : | OPTIONAL IfcText;
Category | : | OPTIONAL IfcLabel;

| INVERSE

END_ENTITY;

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