The paper aims to illustrate three advantages of infrared thermography as a non-destructive, real-time and non-contact technique. It permits first observation of the macrostructural aspects of thermoplasticity describing damage and failure processes in metals, and in particular, automotive components subjected to fatigue loading, second detection of the occurrence of intrinsic dissipation, and third evaluation of the fatigue strength in a very short time, compared to traditional fatigue testing techniques. In addition, infrared thermography readily describes the damage location and the evolution of structural failure.