Characterization is the process of testing, analyzing, and determining core properties of engineering materials. Characterization is at the center of illustrating the interrelationship between processing, structure, properties, and performance of materials.
These properties include physical, chemical, mechanical and microstructural. Characterization is essentially crucial for any engineering design in understanding the properties of the material and manufacturing process to validate for final products.
Mechanical testing, as it implies, covers a wide variety of test methods that are used to evaluate mechanical properties of materials which could be either independent of geometry, or for some defined geometrical conditions.
Testing for mechanical properties is the most important aspect of material characterization. Common properties tested for include tensile, hardness, toughness, fatigue, etc.