Abstract Two classes of experiments were conducted with a Gleeble 1500 thermal–mechanical testing system to investigate the effect of heating-rate and its history on the mechanical behavior of aluminum alloy LY12. In the first class of experiment, specimens were heated at different heating-rates to prescribed temperatures and then stretched until fracture. It was found that the specimen heated with higher heating-rate possesses lower rupture strength. In the second class of experiment, the specimens were preloaded and then heated at different rates until fracture. It was found that the higher the heating-rate was, the lower the failure temperature would be. Metallographical analysis showed that there are more defects in the specimens undergoing higher heating-rate. It was conjectured that higher heating-rate may cause stronger local thermal inconsistency due to the heterogeneous nature of the material. It may then cause local residual microstress fields, which, together with external thermal–mechanical load, may result in the changes in the microstructure of the material, such as recovery, recrystallization, nucleation and growth of microdefects, accounting for the changes in the macroscopic mechanical properties including hardening/softening, damage and failure, etc. A numerical simulation was performed, in which the mechanisms of local thermal inconsistency and the effect of the influencing factors were investigated.