Abstract. Hot tensile testing is useful to understand the material behavior at elevated temperatures. Hence it is of utmost importance that the test condition is accurate enough to derive stress-strain data in fully austenitic state and to ensure homogeneous deformation throughout the gauge length of the specimen. But present limitation of standard Gleeble hot tensile sample geometry could not be used to achieve a uniform temperature distribution along the gauge section, thus creating errors of experimental data. In order to understand the effect of sample geometry on temperature gradient within the gauge section coupled electrical-thermal and thermo-mechanical finite element analysis has been carried out using Abaqus, with the use of viscoplastic damage constitutive equations presented by Li [1]. Based on the experimental study and numerical analysis, it was observed that the new sample geometry introduced by Abspoel [2], is able to achieve a better uniformity in temperature distribution along the gauge length; The temperature deviation along the gauge length within 25 • C during soaking and 5 • C after cooling and onset of deformation); also the strain deformation is found to be almost homogeneous.

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