The global coordinate system determines the default material orientations. However, you can assign specific material orientations to a shell or solid part or region by selecting datum coordinate systems from the viewport. The datum coordinate systems can be rectangular, cylindrical, or spherical; and you can apply an additional rotation to the coordinate system if required. For more information, see “Orientations,” Section 2.2.5 of the ABAQUS Analysis User's Manual.
The material orientations that you assign to a part or region are assigned automatically to all instances of that part in the assembly. You can use the Query toolset to verify that you have assigned the correct material orientation to a selected region. For more information, see “Using the Query toolset to obtain assignment information,” Section 12.14.
To assign a material orientation to a part:
If the part to which you want to assign a material orientation is not visible in the current viewport, click the name of the desired part in the Part list located under the toolbar.
The selected part appears in the current viewport.
From the main menu bar, select Assign
Material Orientation.
Tip:
You can also click the 
tool in the Property module toolbox.
Select the shell or solid regions from the viewport, and click mouse button 2 to indicate you have finished selecting. (For more information, see Chapter 6, “Selecting objects within the viewport.”)
Tip:
You can limit the types of objects that you can select in the viewport by clicking the selection filter tool 
in the prompt area and then clicking the selection filter of your choice in the dialog box that appears. See “Using the selection options,” Section 6.3, for more information.
If you would rather select from a list of existing sets, do the following:
Click Sets on the right side of the prompt area.
ABAQUS/CAE displays the Region Selection dialog box containing a list of available part sets. Part sets containing only shells or solids appear in the list.
Select the part set of interest, and click Continue.
Note: The default selection method is based on the selection method you most recently employed. To revert to the other method, click Select in Viewport or Sets on the right side of the prompt area.
Specify a local material coordinate system in the selected region using one of the following methods:
Select an existing datum coordinate system by name.
From the prompt area, click Datum CSYS List to display a list of datum coordinate systems.
Select a name from the list, and click OK.
Select an existing coordinate system in the viewport.
Click Use Default Orientation from the prompt area to reset a previously assigned material orientation back to the global coordinate system.
ABAQUS/CAE displays the local coordinate system specified for the region.
If you selected a solid region, you can provide an optional additional rotation of the material orientation about a local axis of the datum coordinate system.
From the buttons in the prompt area, select the coordinate system axis about which the additional rotation occurs.
Enter the additional rotation in the prompt area.
ABAQUS/CAE displays the resulting material orientation applied to the region.
If you selected a shell region, you must select an axis on the datum coordinate system that approximates the normal to the shell. In addition, you can provide an optional rotation of the material orientation about the shell normal.
From the buttons in the prompt area, select the datum coordinate system axis that approximates the direction of the shell normal.
Enter the additional rotation in the prompt area.
ABAQUS/CAE applies the additional rotation, if any, and displays the resulting material orientation applied to the region.
If the displayed material orientation is correct, click OK in the prompt area. If you want to change the orientation, click the Previous button (
) and change the orientation as necessary.
