Abstract: The thermal deformation behavior of 316L stainless steel at deformation temperature of 1000-1200 ℃ and strain rate of 0.001-10 s^-1was investigated by using the Gleeble 3800 thermal simulation experimental machine. The results show that during the thermal deformation process, the rheological stress increases with the decrease of the deformation temperature or the increase of the strain rate, and the decrease of strain rate is beneficial for the transformation of substructures into recrystallized grains, promoting dynamic recrystallization. When the strain rate increases from 0.001 s^-1to higher than 1 s^-1, the softening mechanism is changed from being dominated by dynamic recrystallization to dynamic recovery, accompanied by a small amount of continuous and discontinuous dynamic recrystallization. The peak stress constitutive equation was established, and the thermal processing map at a strain of 0.7 was plotted based on the dynamic material model, and combined with the microstructure and deformation mechanism, it is determined that 316L stainless steel is suitable for processing under the conditions of 1000-1180 ℃, 0.001-0.34 s^-1and 1080-1120 ℃, 0.34-1 s^-1, and that the deformation in the unstable zone leads to the inhomogeneous deformation and coarse grains.