Adiabatic Shear Band

Adiabatic shear band is a term used in physics, mechanics and engineering. Since the 1960s adiabatic shear bands have been studied extensively because of their importance as a failure mode in areas such as metal forming and cutting, various types of ballistic impact, as well as vehicle crashes. An adiabatic shear band is one of the many mechanisms of failure that occur in metals and other materials that are deformed at a high rate in processes such as metal forming, machining and ballistic impact. Adiabatic shear bands are usually very narrow, typically 5-500 μm and they consist of very highly sheared material. "Adiabatic" is a thermodynamic term meaning an absence of heat transfer – the heat produced is retained in the zone where it is created. (The opposite extreme, where all heat that is produced is conducted away, is "isothermal".)