Thermal softening behavior up to fracture initiation during high-rate deformation

•In-situ deformation and temperature are measured at post-necking phase up to 103/s.•Softening function due to adiabatic heat is determined by the measured thermal field.•Abrupt local temperature rise at fracture onset is observed at higher rates.•Temperature and strain at actual fracture locations are estimated from the proposed model. This work proposes an innovative method to analyze the softening behavior due to adiabatic heat up to the fracture onset during high-rate deformation of AISI4340 steel at room temperature. To derive the rate- and temperature-dependent constitutive equation considering the post-necking behavior, uniaxial (UT) and notched tension (NT) specimens were tested at three strain rates of 10-3/s, 100/s and 103/s. The full fields of strain and temperature were measured until fracture initiation with high-speed digital and thermal imaging cameras, respectively. In particular, this research focused on observing the abrupt localized temperature increase in the post-necking phase, which was achieved through the use of a newly configured split Hopkinson tension bar (SHTB) system. It enabled an experimental investigation of the effect of adiabatic heat on localized behavior up to fracture at high strain rates (103/s). As the strain rate increased, the strain-localization occurred more quickly, and a higher temperature was experimentally observed at the location where fracture initiated. The experimentally measured thermal field was newly utilized for inverse optimization, to determine the thermal softening effect of the constitutive model considering adiabatic heat up to the onset of fracture including post-necking. Finally, a hybrid experimental-numerical approach was used to investigate the physical quantities of local strain, strain rate, temperature inside the specimen where fracture actually began. [Display omitted]