Tension or Compression

Tensile test is conduted to know the ultimate tensile strength of the material(the point at which it breaks when tensile load is applied).

Comppression test is conducted to know the ultimate compressive strength of the material(the point at which it breaks when compressive load is applied)

Now we can test in UTM (universal testing machine) both tensile and compression test can be checked.So whatever strength we have to find we can conduct the test.so, we want to know at what point the material breaks due to either,So tensile test is more useful.