An exponential placement method for materials selection

In this paper, an innovative method is proposed for material selection. This method is based on the well-known weighting properties approach while integrating a new exponential function in the method to overcome the deficiencies of previously proposed methods. Using a maximum and minimum, in each significant aspect of the problem, for scaling, the values of material properties and achieving more realistic results by not emphasizing on any of the high and low extremes and using an exponential function that ranks the candidates regardless of their number, for improving the performance of the methodology and obtaining more absolute rankings, are some of the advantages of this method. The suggested exponential function and its applicability to the material selection process is verified by examining two case studies in mechanical design and comparing the results with those obtained from the other methods. It is concluded that the new approach is capable of providing more reasonable selections as opposed to those obtained from the existing methods.