The Design of structures under dynamic loading is a demanding subject in safety of engineering design since conventional static failure criteria are unable to deal with structures under transient loading. This work is a contribution to this significant phenomenon to investigate the response and failure of structures to pulse loading. An experimental rig has therefore been designed to achieve the target. A series of experiments has then been carried out to investigate the structural failure under pulse loading using a shock tunnel. A non-linear transient analysis of plates and cylindrical structures under pulse loading has also been performed using ANSYS finite element code in order to introduce a failure criterion for these specific conditions. A large-scale heat exchanger under pressure pulse loading was also analysed experimentally and numerically. The impulsive load has been chosen to be above the static design pressure to investigate the effects of impulsive load and its duration on the plate failure. A critical curve is presented to determine the critical pulse loading and its duration for structures. The relations between the transient pressure loading, its duration and the natural frequency of the structure are also explored. It is indicated that the value of the impulsive load on structures may exceed the static design pressure without structural failure. Both experimental work and numerical analyses suggest that the design criteria for structures under dynamic loading are more flexible than those under static loading in which no freedoms in deviation of any simple yield criterion exist. It is concluded that using a proper failure criterion for any specific problem can increase safe working region of the structures which leads to economical and safe dynamic design of structures.

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