High deformation resistance is essential for the high temperature service of rhenium (Re). To understand hot deformation behavior and the involved dynamic recrystallization (DRX) process of Re, sintered pure Re specimens were deformed in compression over temperatures from 1150 °C to 1550 °C and strain rates between 0.003 and 0.3 s−1. The flow stress response and microstructural features indicate that Re tend to favor continuous DRX as a predominant mechanism during hot deformation. \(\left\{ {10\overline{1} 2} \right\}\) and \(\left\{ {11\overline{2} 1} \right\}\) twins are frequently observed at whole temperature range and provide the preferential sites for discontinuous DRX. The 〈0001〉 //ND basal texture evolves with increasing strain while the occurrence of recrystallized grains weaken the texture. Microstructural refinement occurs during hot deformation and evolves by two mechanism: (i) thermally activated prismatic 〈a〉 slip induce grain subdivision; (ii) \(\left\{ {10\overline{2} 1} \right\}\) and \(\left\{ {11\overline{2} 1} \right\}\) twin interactions induce the accumulation of highly localized strain, leading to formation of recrystallized grains. The apparent activation energy of deformation was calculated to be 537 kJ mol−1 and the stress exponent was 8.5. The high values of activation volume indicate that twin-twin and dislocation-twin interactions act as the barriers controlling the hot deformation of Re.
