What Is Materials Testing?

What Is a Materials Analysis?

A materials analysis—sometimes also referred to as materials testing—is the scientific process of assessing the physical and chemical properties of a particular product, component, or raw material. A materials analysis can provide an exhaustive breakdown of a sample’s composition, including all of its constituent chemical compounds, synthetic materials, and other substances, as well as their precise concentrations. 

In addition to identifying materials and measuring their concentrations within a specific item or sample, materials testing can also evaluate characteristics and performance. Physical characteristics that can be tested during a materials analysis include strength, resistance, elasticity, toughness, and friction. (Testing specifications vary widely between industries, OEMs, and samples, and are often highly customized to fit the requirements of the customer.)

While the most basic, fundamental type of materials analysis examines a product, component, or sample’s composition at a granular—or in some cases even microscopic or nanoscopic—level, there are also an array of other testing methods conducive to specific manufacturers and industries. Some other popular forms of analysis include mechanical testing, which looks at how a sample’s physical properties respond to specific actions and conditions; thermal testing, which evaluates a specimen’s performance and durability under different temperatures; and biological deterioration testing, which analyzes a material’s resistance to corrosion, radiation, and degradation.  

What Are the Main Reasons to Conduct Materials Testing?

There are several important reasons why a manufacturer might want to carry out a materials analysis of one of their products or components. 

• OEMs that manufacture products subject to environmental regulations may want to know the exact chemical composition of their goods. In these instances, product testing can ensure that the regulated chemicals their items contain are below certain thresholds, and the commodity itself is legally compliant. 

• Food and beverage companies need to carry out product testing regularly to verify that their goods are safe for people to consume, and have not been adulterated by hazardous substances or other toxic contaminants. In addition, these firms are legally obligated to maintain product integrity and label their packaging accurately, and these measures often need to be validated by a third-party chemical analysis.

• A range of sectors have a professional responsibility to maintain specific purity levels in their products. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, needs to carry out regular analytical tests and “purity checks” to guarantee that their drugs are not sullied by impurities, contaminants, or other compromising materials. Purity testing is also critical to semiconductor manufacturing, where even the slightest impurities or contaminants in process chemicals can have a substantive impact on quality, performance, and yield. 

What Industries Perform Materials Testing?

Materials testing is not limited to one or even a few sectors. Because it’s the one surefire way to elucidate every single substance in a commodity or manufactured product, it represents an essential due diligence measure for a broad cross-section of industries. 

• Chemicals
• Semiconductors
• Pharmaceuticals
• Food and beverage
• Aerospace and defense
• Automotive
• Construction
• Renewable energy
• Beauty and cosmetics

Who Conducts Materials Testing?

Materials testing is typically carried out by testing laboratories and quality assurance firms that specialize in evaluating products, parts, and materials. These companies perform a myriad of different assessments, including tests that examine chemical composition, durability and performance, and contamination and purity, among other analyses. 

Large multinational testing corporations like Intertek have the scale, capacity, and expertise to conduct materials testing across a broad diversity of industries. Other major testing and quality assurance companies include SGS, Bureau Veritas, and Eurofins Scientific. 

But the field also includes smaller, more niche firms that focus exclusively on materials testing for specific industries. In the aerospace sector, for example, where the performance and reliability of components is absolutely essential and malfunctioning parts and subassemblies can have catastrophic consequences, a constellation of such companies are needed to provide testing and verification for large OEMs. 

What Are the Most Common Techniques for Materials Analysis?

Materials testing can vary greatly from one industry to the next, and the specific techniques being deployed depend on what type of test the lab is being contracted to perform (mechanical, thermal, chemical composition, etc.). For manufacturers interested in learning about their product’s physical properties, quality, and purity, there are several widely-used analytical techniques. 

• Microscopy Testing: As the name implies, this type of analysis utilizes microscope technology to examine the structure and composition of samples on microscopic and nanoscopic scales. Common forms of microscopy testing include optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Nanotechnology, materials science, environmental testing, forensics, and microbiology all draw on this form of materials testing.

• Immunoassay: This chemical test detects and measures the small molecules in a sample, including proteins, hormones, and other analytes. Immunoassays can be effective tests in the fields of medical diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, and food and beverages. 

• Electrochemical Analysis: This class of testing employs electrical stimulation to determine the chemical reactivity of a solution, material, or other sample. Electrochemical analysis gauges the oxidation and reduction reaction rates—collectively known as “redox” reactions—that can tell scientists about the chemical composition, concentrations, and degradation behavior of samples. These tests are often used to study corrosion, deterioration, and failure mechanisms during materials selection and other processes in the fields of batteries, minerals, and pharmaceuticals. 

What’s the Difference Between Quality Assurance and Materials Testing?

Quality assurance and materials testing are two fields and processes that overlap in significant ways, but are far from interchangeable. Quality assurance (QA) can be defined as the practices and procedures that go into verifying that a product or service consistently meets or exceeds a certain quality threshold. According to the International Organization for Standardization, a key architect of some of today’s most widely accepted quality assurance practices, “The primary aim of QA is to reduce the risks of defects — and importantly, to address faults as early as possible in the value chain.” 

While QA typically encompasses many aspects of an organization’s operations and manufacturing processes, materials testing is a single specific, discrete measure used to evaluate quality, content, and performance. Because of this sharp contrast in scope, it would be fair to say that materials analysis is a critical, even indispensable aspect of quality assurance. The best, most comprehensive QA programs often draw on one or several types of materials testing to maintain a high level of quality in their products and minimize defects, faults, and other compromising factors.