Two different principles of TMF-testing were investigated for the wrought aluminium alloy AlCuBiPb (201 I). In the first testing method the specimens are clamped in a stiff load frame. A cyclic temperature load is applied, which leads to an out-of-phase (OP) TMF loading. The local strain is measured within the parallel cross section of the specimen. The second series of OP-TMF tests are conducted using closed loop strain control on a servo-hydraulic TMF testing system, which guarantees a rigid restraint condition within the parallel section of the specimen. To compare these two principles of TMF-testing, additional experiments were conducted with different mechanical strain amplitudes. The two experiments can be compared well, when the local strains are taken into account. Therefore, the method of the rigid clamped specimen can be used to get experimental data in a wide range of strain amplitudes.