This document will explain the process of developing systems and equipment to observe
adiabatic shear bands as they form during experiments. This will involve explaining the scope
of the problem which relies on the speed required to cause a system to effectively become
adiabatic. The adiabatic nature of the deformation under shear loading at high rate is what
allows the thermal softening to overwhelm strain and strain rate hardening. This requires a
suitable test bed, and this thesis will explain the development of a suitable arrangement of a
miniaturised Klosky Bar. This thesis will also explain a method of observing the deformation
as it occurs, using a speckle pattern applied to a well-polished sample surface and digital
image correlation to observe changes over the course of the experiment. This system needs
a specific set of requirements be met for the sample so that shear bands can be preferentially
formed in view of the imaging systems. The development of those samples is also explained.
Additional methods of analysis are also preliminarily investigated, including x-ray phase
contrast imaging and thermoreflectance temperature measurements. This thesis presents
some of the results gathered during this investigation, conducted to attempt to find the ASB
characteristics of Ti-6Al-4V. This project found the critical strain for as received Titanium-6-
Aluminium-4-Vanadium is 0.25, and critical strain rate may be as low as 1x10^3, and showed
that deformation through the shear region is not laminar. The directions this project’s work
could then be taken is explained in the final section.