Controlled temperature jaws to improve material characterization by uniaxial hot tensile test

Thermal and stretching tests were performed in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed device. The thermal behaviour tests showed that for almost all heating conditions the temperature variation in the gauge length region of specimens is smaller than the oven temperature deviations around the prescribed value (±3.7 °C). It was also shown that the influence of the material, thickness and geometry is negligible. The stretching behaviour experiments allowed confirmation that if the temperature of the jaws is set below the glass transition temperature of the material, adhesion between the specimen and the jaws, slip-stick, grip-extrusion and compression in the gripping region are minimized or eliminated. Further, as the influence of the jaws is extended to its neighbourhood, the specimen stretching is mainly confined to the gauge length region.