The automotive and aerospace industry is under constant pressure to design vehicles or aircraft body and chassis to meet increasingly demanding on cost reduction, improved fuel economy, enhanced safety, effective emission control, recyclability and life cycle consideration. The designers and materials scientist aim to develop advanced materials with the properties needed to meet these requirements.  They investigate the relationship between the materials processing, developed the materials structure and their resulting properties.  By understanding and monitoring the structure it is possible to control and optimise the materials processing conditions for production to achieve the desired properties for material design and service use.

Oxford Instruments provides EDS & EBSD tools to characterise both the chemical composition and crystallographic structure of materials. Characterization information can be used in materials research and development, quality control and failure analysis.