Abstract: Hot deformation behavior and texture of β-phase of TC18 titanium alloy were systematically investigated using Gleeble-3800 thermal simulator at compression temperature of 815-910 ℃ and strain rate of 0.001-1 s^-1. It is found that the flow stress decreases at elevated compression temperature while it increases at high strain rates. As for the flow stress-strain curves, a global trend is that the flow stress almost maintains the steady state upon straining at low strain rates, while the sharp stress degradation takes place at high strain rates. Meanwhile, EBSD characterization reveals that two deforma tion texture components of ＜111＞ and ＜001＞ appear in the compressed microstructure, the ＜001＞ texture become stronger in accompany with the weakening of the ＜111＞ texture as increasing the testing temperatures, the compression strains, or lowering the strain rates.Our analysis indicate that the steady flow stress at low strain rates results from the dynamic balance between recrystallization softening effect and strain hardening effect. The sharp stress degradation at the temperature of 815 ℃ and high strain rate of 1s^-1 can be ascribed to the weakening of the precipitation-strengthening effect due to the redissolution of α-particles into theβ-matrix, while the structure softening cause by dynamic recrystallization is the main reason for the dramatical stress drop at elevated temperature of 910 ℃ and high strain rate of 1 s^-1. Moreover, the increase of ＜001＞ texture at the cost of ＜111＞texture can be rationalized using the theory of strain-induced grain boundary migration.