Testing as strategy, not a catalogue
Materials characterisation answers questions: What is this material? Does it meet its specification? Why does its microstructure look like this? What is this deposit or corrosion product? The value is not in running tests — it is in choosing the right tests, in the right order, and reading what the results mean for your decision. That is the service MTIS provides, and it underpins every other service line we offer.
MTIS maintains limited in-house practical capability for inspection, sample preparation, secure storage and selected materials-processing/support tasks, and works with a network of specialist laboratory partners to access the most appropriate test methods for each investigation.
Because MTIS is not tied to one laboratory's equipment, each test programme is designed around the question — using the most appropriate method available through specialist partners — and every result comes back to you interpreted by the same senior engineers who designed the programme. How the partner-lab model works →
Typical questions we answer
- Material verification: is this component the material grade it is supposed to be — including PMI-type verification questions?
- Unknown identification: what is this material, deposit, contaminant or corrosion product?
- Microstructural condition: correctly heat treated, or degraded in service? Inclusion content acceptable?
- Fractography: what does the fracture surface say about how this part failed?
- Reverse engineering: what specification does an existing component actually meet?
- Test-strategy design: which methods, in what order, answer the engineering question economically — including when your routine testing programme needs an independent eye.
How it works
- Define the question. We turn your problem into specific, testable questions.
- Design the programme. Methods selected for what they can prove — in-house where within our capability, otherwise through the specialist partner best suited to each method.
- Coordinate delivery. Samples prepared, tracked and handled with documented care and secure storage.
- Interpret the results. Data becomes an engineering answer: what it means, how confident it is, and what to do next.
Related reading
Materials characterisation for non-specialists →
How partner-laboratory testing supports an investigation →