TRIP steel indicates an excellent characteristic in energy absorption because of its high ductility and strength by strain-induced martensitic transformation (SIMT). Recently, some shock absorption members are being used for automotive industries. For good fuel consumption of the automobile, it would realize the weight reduction without decaying performance if TRIP steel can be applied to those members. It can be considered that the fracture toughness is an important factor to evaluate the

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... rmance. To evaluate fracture toughness locally at any point of a product of those members, small punch testing method is quite effective. In the present study, first, an impact small punch testing apparatus is established. In addition, elasto-plastic fracture toughness of TRIP steel under impact loading and its rate sensitivity tested at various deflection rates are challenged to evaluate. 2 Experimental procedure Specimen Specimens used in the present study are aluminum alloy 6061 and AISI304, which is a kind of TRIP steel. The This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.