OpenChartMS

Open-source, browser-based Ashby material-selection charts for teaching. A free alternative to Ansys Granta EduPack, built for Harvard's ES 192 and any course that teaches Mike Ashby's material-selection method.

Attribution. OpenChartMS uses the methodology, indices catalogue, and reference property ranges from M.F. Ashby, Materials Selection in Mechanical Design (6th ed., Butterworth-Heinemann / Elsevier, 2025). The textbook's preface explicitly authorizes reproduction of charts for teaching with attribution; see docs/DATA_SOURCES.md for full provenance. If you use this in a class or paper, please cite both OpenChartMS and the Ashby textbook — see CITATION.cff.

Capabilities

Tab	Book chapter	Method
Material charts	Ch. 3–5	Single-objective screen + index ranking. 10 canonical Ashby charts, property limit sliders, draggable index cutoff, custom-index editor (M = y^a / x^b), lasso/box selection.
Trade-off	Ch. 9.3	Pareto front + penalty function Z = X + α·Y for conflicting objectives. Exchange-constant slider, iso-Z contours, optimum identification, baseline-material quadrants (Fig 9.9).
Multi-constraint	Ch. 9.2	Coupling chart I₁ vs I₂ + slope-1 coupling line at Cc for multiple constraints, one objective. Min-max metric m̃ = max(I₁, I₂/Cc), active-constraint indicator per material.
Hybrid synth	Ch. 13	Voigt/Reuss composite bounds, Gibson-Ashby foam scaling, sandwich-panel locus on E vs ρ.
Process	Ch. 7	Process attribute matrix screening + per-part cost-vs-batch curves (C = m·Cm + C_tool/n + C_capital·t_cycle/(n·η)).
Eco-Audit	Ch. 15	Bill-of-materials lifecycle (materials + use + EoL credit). Energy/CO₂ metric toggle, recycle-credit calculation.

Data

159 materials × up to 22 properties, built in three phases:

Phase	Materials	Source
0 — original corpus	56	Ashby App A, Tables A.1–A.12 (6th ed., 2025)
1 — specific alloy grades	+35	ASM Handbooks Vol. 1 & 2, manufacturer datasheets
2 — gap-filling materials	+39	ASM EH Vol. 4, CRC Handbook, Bath ICE v3.0, Cambridge Materials Data Book
3 — Materials Project API	+29	DFT density & elasticity via Materials Project (CC BY 4.0)

Every property value carries a per-cell source citation in the JSON. Applications descriptions are paraphrased (not quoted) from Ashby Table A.1. See data/README.md for the schema and docs/DATA_SOURCES.md for full provenance and licensing rationale.

Run locally

git clone https://github.com/Seymurhh/OpenChartMS
cd OpenChartMS

# data pipeline (Python)
python3 scripts/build_materials.py   # emits data/materials/*.json
python3 scripts/validate.py          # validates against schema (requires jsonschema)

# web app (Node)
npm install
npm run dev                          # http://localhost:5173
npm run build                        # production bundle in dist/

Deploy to GitHub Pages

This repo ships with two GitHub Actions workflows:

• .github/workflows/ci.yml — on every PR + push to main: rebuilds the corpus from build_materials.py, runs the schema validator, and runs npm run build.
• .github/workflows/deploy.yml — on every push to main: builds and publishes dist/ to GitHub Pages.

One-time setup after first push:

1. Push the repo to GitHub.
2. In repo Settings → Pages → set Source to "GitHub Actions".
3. Next push to main triggers deploy; the URL appears as the workflow's deployment output (typically https://<your-user>.github.io/OpenChartMS/).

vite.config.ts uses base: './', so the build is path-agnostic.

Tech stack

Vite + React 18 + TypeScript + Plotly.js. Data is a static JSON corpus alias-imported via @data/*. No backend.

Citation and licensing

• Software code: MIT — see LICENSE.
• Bundled material corpus: reproducible under the Ashby textbook's express teaching-use permission (book preface, p. xiv). Cite Ashby (6e, 2025) when using the data. See docs/DATA_SOURCES.md.
• Citation file: CITATION.cff.

Disclaimers

Educational use only — non-commercial. OpenChartMS is developed for Harvard ES 192 (Materials Selection and Failure Analysis) and is intended solely for teaching and non-commercial academic use.

Property values are for instructional purposes only and are not suitable for safety-critical engineering decisions. For production work use MMPDS, ASM Handbook, NIST WebBook, or manufacturer data sheets.

This is an independent academic project. "Granta", "EduPack", and Ansys logos are trademarks of Ansys, Inc. and are not used by this project. OpenChartMS is not affiliated with or endorsed by Ansys, Elsevier, Cambridge University, or the Materials Project.