Destructive 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.

Detecting the failure can be accomplished using a sound detector or stress gauge which produces a signal to trigger the high-speed camera.

The tests are, mostly, carried out on a platform called a shake-table which is designed to shake in the same manner as an earthquake.

It is now standard procedure to test to destruction the first few production models of new airplanes by loading various components until they fail.

The 1951 movie, No Highway in the Sky starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich told the story of an eccentric engineer who pioneered research into destructive testing of complete components against a great deal of skepticism.

Snapshot from shake-table video of a 6-story non-ductile concrete building
Oblique frontal crash test of a Dodge Dart .
NASA air safety experiment Controlled Impact Demonstration . The airplane is a Boeing 720 testing a form of jet fuel, known as " antimisting kerosene ", which formed a difficult-to-ignite gel when agitated violently, as in a crash.