The platform MaterialDigital (PMD) has set itself the goal of bringing together and supporting interested parties from the industrial and academic sectors in a sustainable manner in the implementation of digitalization tasks for materials.
For this purpose, the establishment of a virtual material data space and the systematization of the handling of hierarchical, process-dependent material data are aimed at. The development of agreements on data structures and interfaces, which are implemented in concrete software tools and offer users of the PMD easy access and concrete added value in their own projects, are the core points of the work.
The platform does not serve as a supplier, since the "filling" of the framework with data is to take place on decentralized servers by the users. A unified approach is essential here. The development of runtime environments for executing tools with which the digitalization of materials can also be implemented practically and which, as added value, underpin the prerequisite for a sustainable business model, the economic connectivity of the MaterialDigital platform, will be coordinated and driven forward.
The approach of the platform aims in the medium term at a fundamentally networked handling of data from the discipline of materials science and materials engineering, particularly in an industrial context. To this end, decentralized servers with data are to be made not only queryable but also analyzable in the future through uniform frameworks defined by the platform. Questions of data security and sovereignty are at the forefront of all the platform's efforts.
The platform and its collaborating project partners hope that a shared approach will produce forward-looking synergies in the handling of generated data resources, so that the properties and behavior of the material can be better understood, optimization can be more targeted, and production processes can become more efficient.
