prCWA 17815 rev

Materials characterization – terminology and structured documentation

Scope

Standardisation is relevant for an integrated technological development. Particularly, early standardisation of terminology has been identified as critical in and to European research projects. The need for standardisation of terminology and metadata in materials characterisation (and for wider materials digitalisation in general) has been outlined in the European Materials Characterisation Council Roadmap (2018), on which this CWA is based. The workshop scope follows the footsteps of the CEN Workshop on Materials modelling terminology, classification and metadata (CWA 17284). Similarly to the materials modelling field, the objective is to agree on a high-level materials characterisation terminology, categorization and a framework for documentation. Hence, this CWA includes definitions of fundamental terms for the field of materials characterisation. The definitions categorisation of materials characterisation methods based on a relatively small number of fundamental aspects of any type of characterisation such as the sample (which include testing environment and length scale), probe, environment and property concepts, replacing the current situation of opacity of materials characterisation methods that make the field hard to access for outsiders.Based on these categories, this CWA provides a systematic description and documentation of methods including the user case, method, raw data generation and analysis and post- processing of data: the “materials CHAracterisation DAta” (CHADA). This is similar to the Materials Modelling Metadata (MODA) The CHADA seeks to organise the information so that even complex characterisation workflows can be conveyed more easily and key data about the methods, raw data generation and analysis, and post-processing of data and their implementation can be captured. A template CHADA is described in order to guide users towards a complete documentation of material characterisation.