ACPD is used in two ways - for sizing defects found by another method (such as MT or PT), or for monitoring (crack initiation at a stress hotspot or growth of a known crack).

Crack sizing is done by manual inspection in a wide variety of industries. It should be noted that because ACPD requires good electrical contact with the metal surface, it is difficult to deploy in subsea inspection applications.

Crack monitoring is often done in laboratory testing (e.g. fatigue testing, crack initiation testing, fracture toughness tests), but can also be on-site using permanently installed probes at critical regions.