Which properties can I assign to a part?

Section: You can assign the section to a region of a part. The Section Assignment Manager allows you to view, create, edit, suppress, resume, and delete section assignments. In the Property module, Abaqus/CAE colors a region green to indicate that the region has a section assignment. If there are overlapping section assignments, Abaqus/CAE colors the region yellow.
Beam Section Orientation: You can assign beam section orientations to wire regions. You assign an orientation to a beam section by defining the approximate local 1-direction of the cross-section.
Material Orientation: You can assign material orientations to shell and solid regions. The global coordinate system determines the default material orientation. You can define a material orientation by selecting an existing datum coordinate system or discrete field or by defining a discrete orientation. For an Abaqus/Standard analysis, you can define the material orientation in a user subroutine.
Rebar Reference Orientation: The angular orientation of a rebar layer is defined relative to the rebar reference orientation. You can assign rebar reference orientations to shell regions. The global coordinate system determines the default rebar reference orientation. You can define a rebar reference orientation by selecting an existing datum coordinate system from the viewport and then selecting an axis on the datum coordinate system that approximates the direction of the shell normal.
Element Normal: You can assign shell/membrane normal directions to orphan elements, shell and membrane regions, and axisymmetric parts with wire regions. The shell/membrane normals affect the material orientation assigned to the region. If you reverse the normal of a shell region, the material 2-direction will be reversed. The reversal of the material 2-direction has no effect on the analysis results. However, you should use care when interpreting section point output for shells.
Element Tangent: You can assign beam/truss tangent directions to orphan elements and wire regions. Beam section orientations depend on the beam tangent directions. If you reverse the tangent direction, the local 2-direction will be reversed, and you should use care when interpreting results, in particular when you identify the beam section point locations.

You can use the Assign menu in the Property module main menu bar to assign properties to a part. You can select the region to which to assign a property in the following ways:

Select the region directly in the viewport.
Select elements individually or using the angle method (to assign shell normals to orphan elements).
Use the Set toolset to create a set consisting of regions of parts or orphan elements. (The Set toolset is available from the Tools menu in the main menu bar.) You can then assign the property to the region or elements defined by the set.

If you assign a section to a region and then rename or delete the section, that section is no longer applied to the region. If a region of your model lacks section properties, your analysis job will fail and the problem will be reported by the Job module.

However, the original names of renamed or deleted sections continue to be associated with the regions to which they have been assigned until you take one of the following actions:

Assign a different section to the region.
Create a new section that has the original section name and is the appropriate type for the region (for example, a shell section for a shell region); the properties defined in the new section are applied to the region automatically.
If you have renamed a section, change the name of the section back to its original name.

(You can use the Query toolset to determine the name of the section assigned to the region; for more information, see Understanding the role of the Query toolset.)

Similarly, if you refer to a material in a section definition and then rename or delete the material, the section becomes invalid; properties defined in that section are no longer applied to regions to which the section is assigned. However, the original names of renamed or deleted materials continue to be associated with sections that refer to those materials; therefore, you can use techniques similar to the ones listed above to restore sections.

For detailed instructions on assigning properties to a model and managing section assignments, see the following sections: