ABSTRACT
Although a variety of analytical techniques have been described in previous chapters, many of these approaches include inherent assumptions and simplifications. In other cases, the environment and/or equipment is too complex to analyze within the available resources. In these situations, testing may be required to obtain the necessary data or verify the analytical results. Prior planning of test configurations should be conducted to obtain the maximum benefit and to facilitate data analysis. It should be noted that the intent of this chapter is not to describe testing to verify compliance to some minimum requirement, but to obtain test data that can be used in analytical models. This is especially apparent in the case of life testing, where failures are something desired for verification purposes and not consequences to be avoided.
