CEN Workshop Agreement CWA 16200:2010 (E): A Guide to the Development and Use of Standards Compliant Data Formats for Engineering Materials Test Data

The engineering community invests significantly in generating materials test data of a high inherent value. Very often, the data sets are richly structured and amenable to reuse. The materials community has however, largely failed to address the issue of data capture and preservation. Although technologies for the automated capture and preservation of test data exist, on the rare occasions that data are conserved, they are invariably inaccessible to the wider materials community. This inevitably acts as an obstacle to the research process, and hinders business activities in the engineering sector. In recognition of these issues, CEN (the European Committee for Standardization) sponsored the 12-month ELSSI-EMD Workshop to develop schemas and ontologies derived from procedural materials testing standards. With the emergence of a Semantic Web of data, the project aimed to emulate other branches of the sciences that are developing and leveraging Web technologies to their advantage, and that of associated business sectors. Beyond developing schemas and ontologies for a chosen test type that complement existing specifications, the Workshop investigated their role in promoting the capture and conservation of experimental data in the materials sector, the opportunities that may arise for new and improved business, and the viability of appending the schemas and ontologies to their corresponding materials testing standards. This CWA reports the work performed and the findings of the ELSSI-EMD Workshop.