tensile testing

Hardness testing, like tensile testing, assesses a material's mechanical properties, specifically its resistance to indentation. While it doesn't provide the same detailed stress-strain information as tensile testing, it offers an alternative method for evaluating material strength and durability. There is some overlap in the types of samples which hardness and tensile testing can be applied to, and they are sometimes used to measure similar qualities, making it at least a weak competitor.

Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) is complementary because it characterizes the viscoelastic properties of materials as a function of temperature, frequency, and time. It provides information on storage modulus, loss modulus, and damping, which can be used alongside tensile testing data to provide a more complete understanding of material behavior, particularly for polymers and viscoelastic materials. Measurements can be used to assess behavior under different loading and temperature conditions, which adds to tensile measurements.

Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) measures heat flow associated with thermal transitions in a material. DSC provides information about material characteristics such as glass transition temperature, melting point, and crystallization behavior. This is complementary to tensile testing because it can help understand how temperature affects the mechanical properties measured in tensile tests, especially for polymers and other temperature-sensitive materials.

Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) is a complementary technique because it provides high-resolution images of a material's microstructure. It can be used to examine fracture surfaces after tensile testing, revealing the mechanisms of failure and providing insights into how the material's microstructure affects its mechanical properties. SEM gives a good visual explanation of tensile test results.