About Us

The problem

Proper selection of the material suitable for a specific application is one of the most important and complex issues that needs to be addressed ever earlier during product development.

For modelling and simulation of the response of loaded structures and components, among other information, properties which describe material behaviour must be known. Except for basic monotonic properties, experimental characterisation of material behaviour is complicated, expensive and, in the case of cyclic/fatigue experiments, it can be long-lasting as well.

Finding adequate test equipment is also difficult, in no small part due to the almost non-existent information on capabilities and equipment in academic and industrial research laboratories.

Due to high cost of testing machines and experiments, alternative solutions are often resorted to, but difficult access to expert and scientific literature, having no time to research are all problems that both engineers and scientists are facing in the course of their everyday work.

Our idea

Long time ago, we started with just one:

  • to collect existing, published design-relevant material data and make them available to the industrial/academic/research community via an online database

But ended up with many:

  • collect and share knowledge and material data results of published materials research
  • inspire everyone who tests materials to make the knowledge available to the members of the technical community (engineers and experts, scientists, professors and students)
  • increase visibility of test laboratories and equipment
  • connect the suppliers of services, equipment, and materials with companies in search for solutions
  • enable and encourage networking among academia and industry
  • support two-way data and knowledge transfer of between academia and industry

Project goals

  • develop a material-oriented online platform with materials properties databases and services,
  • create user-expandable material-oriented knowledge base,
  • integrate information on materials, laboratories, suppliers and researchers into a single point of access
  • launch a directory of suppliers of services, equipment, and materials and helping their offerings reach all MATDAT visitors and registered users
  • form and support a user community willing to cooperate and share their data, information and knowledge.

Expected benefits

  • easier and faster evaluation of more candidate materials during product development,
  • savings by avoiding repeating experiments already performed elsewhere on same materials,
  • easier verification of own experimental results,
  • increased utilization of testing equipment,
  • an easy way to find providers of solutions to technical challenges,
  • new business opportunities among members of the MATDAT community
  • dissemination of new knowledge on materials to practicing engineers and experts from the industry
  • improve visibility of results of materials research

MATDAT Founder

Robert Basan, D. Sc.

Robert Basan

D. Sc.

ROLE: MATDAT founder and CEO

AFFILIATION: Faculty of Engineering, University of Rijeka, Croatia

EXPERTISE: load capacity and durability of machine elements and structures, fatigue of materials and structures in general, estimation methods, CAE/FEA

Took part in a number of national and international research projects, both as a collaborator and project leader. In co-authorship with his colleagues, he published his work in high level journals such as International Journal of Fatigue and Computational Materials Science, and he is also active as a reviewer for these and similar journals.

Our (Hi)Story

Join Us

In the Future

We’re developing interesting new features, such as:

2018

Matdat Today

With 4000+ registered users, we’re continuously working on expanding our database with new materials, attracting new users, and strengthening relationships with industrial partners and material suppliers.

2017

Altair Strategic Relationship

MATDAT forms strategic relationship with Altair Engineering, a major US product design and development, engineering software and cloud computing software company.

2017

MATDAT Grows into a Company

Matdat d.o.o. registers as a limited liability company at the Commercial Court in Rijeka, Croatia. Everything started with the idea of providing free resource of material data to students and professors. We are continuing to do so, but now as a company.

2015

Thomson Reuters Contract

Data Citation IndexThomson Reuters Data Citation Index (now called the Web of Science by Clarivate) invites MATDAT to become the only material property database provider in its large index of 300+ databases.

2015

SpaceX Becomes MATDAT User

MATDAT boldly goes where no database of material properties has gone before: SpaceX, a private American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, signs up as a new user.

2013

Directory Service Added

Directory of Labs, Services & Providers launches as a pilot offering at matdat.com. The directory aims to increase the visibility of labs and service providers and connect them with new customers already looking for their services.

2013

First Institutional Users

Another milestone: 7 faculties and universities secure free academic licenses for all their students and teachers, with Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Slavonski Brod, Croatia being the first among them.

2012

Growth to 500 Users

This was a great milestone for us and a sign that we must be doing at least something right. A lot of positive feedback, especially from doctoral students who found our database very useful for their research.

2011

Project Launch

Old MATDAT.com

On April 26, 2011 it became official: first MATDAT website was launched and was publicly presented the next day at the 7th International Scientific Conference IRMES 2011.

2010

Project Start

Unsuccessful application for a project? No reason to give up on the idea. Work on MATDAT continued without external funding and thanks to much enthusiasm and hard work we managed to turn the idea into a reality. As it turns out, we’d be doing it that way for years to come...

2007

Idea is Born

As I was working on my doctoral thesis, I realized just how hard material data is to come by. Experiments are expensive and long lasting, and required literature often unavailable. My experience gave life to MATDAT.

Read the founder’s entire story

Partners

Your Brand Here

  • Altair Engineering
  • Clarivate Analytics
  • IHS Markit
  • eFatigue
  • Dynomax
  • AITAC