Material testing

Material tests are primarily used to determine a material's properties in research and development applications, to perform checks and Quality assurance measures during production and to analyse any damage.

Essentially, test methods can be split into the following groups:

• Mechanical, physical and chemical analyses
• Testing of characteristic values and material/processing properties (material analysis)
• Structural analysis

• Troubleshooting.

In most cases, tests are performed on test pieces (samples). A distinction is made between destructive and non-destructive test methods, and also between static methods with constant or slowly increasing loads and dynamic methods with sudden or periodic loads.

In the case of mechanical test methods, a differentiation is made according to the type of load. Examples include compression, tensile, Torsion, Bending, vibration (fatigue), notched-bar and shear tests. Burning tests, gas chromatography, crystallography and end quench tests are all examples of chemical and thermal testing.

Non-destructive test methods include Strain gauge, ultrasonic and radiographic testing, infrared thermography and also visual inspection.