In destructive testing, tests are carried out to the specimen's failure, in order to understand a specimen's structural performance or material behaviour under different loads. These tests are generally much easier to carry out, yield more information, and are easier to interpret than nondestructive testing.
Destructive testing is most suitable, and economic, for objects which will be mass produced, as the cost of destroying a small number of specimens is negligible. It is usually not economical to do destructive testing where only one or very few items are to be produced (for example, in the case of a building).
Some types of destructive testing:
- Stress tests
- Crash tests
- Hardness tests
- Metallographic tests
Read more about Destructive Testing: Testing of Large Structures, Destructive Software Testing
Famous quotes containing the words destructive and/or testing:
“Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best 20-20 hindsight. It’s good for seeing where you’ve been. It’s good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can’t tell you where you ought to go.”
—Robert M. Pirsig (b. 1928)