19th International CODATA Conference
Category: Interoperability

XML related Data Exchange from the Test Machine into the Web-enabled Alloys-DB

M. Nagy, H.H. Over, and P. Hähner
Joint Research Centre of the European Commission – Institute for Energy, Petten, The Netherlands

The engineering sciences place considerable reliance on electronic systems to produce, store and process experimentally measured material data. One of the JRC Petten tasks is to support European RTD projects in the material and energy related areas with the management and dissemination of research results. The ‘Alloys Database’ (Alloys‑DB), developed at JRC Petten, manages mechanical and physical properties test data and covers materials behavior for base materials and joints. By using XML technology such test data can directly be entered from the test machines into the Web-enabled Alloys-DB.

Test data, which are kept in XML format and sent by RTD project partners via the World Wide Web to the Petten Server are stored within the Alloys-DB XML database module. There they can be checked, updated and validated on-line before they are uploaded into the database. Then they can immediately be retrieved and evaluated by all project partners. A pilot test with the new XML related data exchange module from test machine into Alloys-DB has currently been started within the European ‘TMF Standard’ RTD project.

The use of XML standards is already a very promising step into the next generation Web, often referred to as the Semantic Web. It aims at machine-processable information that will enable true interoperability between sort specific databases, different in structure and language. Data on the Semantic Web is characterized by semantic metadata called ontologies that facilitates sharing and interoperability between systems and languages. It is our aim for the future to realize this step and thus to enable JRC Petten to built up a European network for collecting and disseminating publicly available experimentally measured materials data within national and European RTD projects using the Web-enabled Alloys-DB. Further on it would allow exchanging materials data on an international level.