Compact Forced Simple-Shear Sample for Studying Shear Localization in Materials G.T. Gray III 1 , K.S. Vecchio 2 , V. Livescu 1 1 Los Alamos National Laboratory Materials Science and Technology Division Los Alamos, NM 87545 2 University of California – San Diego Department of NanoEngineering San Diego, CA Abstract A new specimen geometry, the compact forced-simple-shear specimen (CFSS), has been developed as a means to achieve simple shear testing of materials over a range of temperatures and strain rates. The stress and strain state in the gage section is designed to produce essentially “pure” simple shear, mode II in-plane shear, in a compact-sample geometry. The 2-D plane of shear can be directly aligned along specified directional aspects of a material’s microstructure of interest; i.e., systematic shear loading parallel, at 45 degrees, and orthogonal to anisotropic microstructural features in a material such as the pancake-shaped grains typical in many rolled structural metals, or to specified directions in fiber-reinforced composites. The shear-stress shear-strain response and the damage evolution parallel and orthogonal to the pancake grain morphology in 7039-Al are shown to vary significantly as a function of orientation to the microstructure. Keywords: Shear Localization, anisotropy, microstructure, sample geometry © 2015. This manuscript version is made available under the Elsevier user license http://www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/