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Technical Working Areas (TWA)

    Current active TWAs
    Interlaboratory comparisons
    Completed TWAs
    Initiation of a new TWA

Since the inception of VAMAS, 34 TWAs have been set up, covering a wide range of pre-standards research needs for the application of advanced materials. Two new TWA's are in the process of being initiated. Over 500 individuals from many research groups including reseachers from outside the original founding countries have participated in over 80 individual projects.

Typically, international collaboration takes place to agree the technical basis for test method development and, using round robin intercomparisons, the test methods are checked to ensure that consistent results are obtainable at different laboratories, and provide precision (repeatability and reproducibility) data.

Current active TWAs

    TWA  2    Surface Chemical Analysis
    TWA  5    Polymer Composites
    TWA 16   Superconducting Materials
    TWA 22   Mechanical Properties of Thin Films and Coatings
    TWA 24   Performance Related Properties of Electroceramics
    TWA 26   Full Field Optical Stress and Strain Measurement
    TWA 28   Spectrometry of Synthetic Polymers
    TWA 29   Nanomechanics applied to Scanning Probe Microscopy
    TWA 30   Tissue Engineering
    TWA 31   Creep, Crack and Fatigue Growth in Weldments
    TWA 32   Modulus Measurements
    TWA 33   Polymer Nanocomposites
    TWA 34   Nanoparticle Populations
    TWA 35   Materials Databases Interoperability
    TWA 36   Organic Electronics
    TWA 37   Quantitative Microstructural Analysis

To see the list of completed TWAs, select this link.

Initiation of new TWAs

Requests to establish a new TWA or a project within a new or existing TWA should be submitted to the VAMAS Secretary. The VAMAS Activity Initiation Form will need to be completed and the Secretariat will be happy to provide any guidance and assistance.

see also,

  • Guidelines for setting up and organising TWAs

    • If you have any queries, or to request an Activity Initiation Form, please contact the VAMAS Secretary (sam.gnaniah@npl.co.uk).