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Thermal fatigue of austenitic and ferritic stainless steel grades has been experimentally and numerically investigated. A special test has been developed to determine the thermal fatigue resistance of clamped V-shaped specimens. This test permits to impose thermal cycle by alternating resistance heating and air cooling. The thermal fatigue life of a specimen is expressed as the number of cycles to failure. For a given grade, the fatigue life depends on the maximal and minimal temperature of the cycle, holding time at the maximal temperature and specimen thickness. The advantage of this V-shape test is that it is a simple procedure quite representative of the thermal fatigue process occurring in an exhaust manifold. This test is well suited to perform a study of damage mechanisms and to compare stainless steel grades. Examination of the failed specimens indicated that cracks could be mainly attributed to out-of-phase (OP) thermal fatigue process especially in case of ferritic grades.