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Article history:
Received 11 February 2009
Received in revised form
8 September 2009
Accepted 16 September 2009
Available online 6 October 2009
In the present study an ultra high strength armour steel was austenatised at 910 C followed by
tempering at 200, 300, 400, 500 and 600 C. After heat treatment the properties of tensile strength,
ductility, charpy impact strength, hardness and microstructure were evaluated from the mechanical tests
and metallographic analysis respectively. The ballistic behavior of the heat-treated plates was evaluated
impacting against non-deformable hard steel core projectiles at 840 15 m/s at normal angle of attack.
The changes in the microstructure and mechanical properties with heat treatment have been correlated
with ballistic performance of the steel. Experimental results showed that 200 C tempering gives the best
ballistic performance.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Ultra high strength steel
Heat treatment
Ballistic property
1. Introduction
The armour on combat vehicles has always been constrained by
its weight, which with rising threat levels has become an increasingly serious problem. Much effort is therefore being devoted on
the development of armour materials that would provide greater
ballistic protection with little increase in weight.
Amongst all materials, ultra high strength (UHS) steels are the
most extensively used metallic armour today. They possess
a unique combination of high strength, high hardness with good
toughness, weldability and ease of heat treatment making them
attractive for ballistic applications.
Generally, quenching and tempering are well established means
to produce strengthening in UHS steels, while at the same time
retaining or even increasing its impact toughness. Of all the
structures produced by heat treatment, martensite forms the
highest level of strength in steels. However, because of large
internal stresses associated with the martensitic transformation,
martensite phase is rarely used in an untempered condition.
Tempering increases both the ductility and the toughness, which
are essential for enhancing impact energy absorption. Tempered
martensite lath structure also provides best dynamic strength in
steel [1,2].
243
Table 2
Variation in hardness with austenitisation temperature.
Austenitisation
Hardness
Steel
Temperature ( C)
(VHN)
850
875
910
950
569
585
608
579
0.30.35% C, 0.20.3% Si, 0.50.7% Mn, 1.41.7% Cr, 1.52.0% Ni, 0.3
0.5% Mo, 0.10.2% V, 0.02% Al, balance Fe
this study, the Ac1 and Ac3 temperatures are found to be 758 C and
808 C respectively as illustrated in Fig. 1.
Samples of 150 100 25 mm were cut from a single plate and
subjected to heat treatment for modifying the microstructure and
mechanical properties. For the present tests, in order to determine
the optimum austenitisation temperature the samples were rst
austenitised at 830, 870, 910 and 950 C temperatures for 1 h followed by quenching in oil. Table 2 shows the hardness values
obtained in the quenched condition for different austenitisation
temperatures. On the basis of the obtained hardness values, 910 C
was chosen as the austenitisation temperature. For getting different
quenched and tempered martensite structures, samples from the
as-received steel were austenitised at 910 C and held at this
temperature for 1 h followed by quenching in oil to get a fully
martensitic structure. Then the plates were immediately tempered
at temperatures of 200,300,400,500,600 C for 2 h followed by
cooling to room temperature in air. Austenitizing and tempering
were carried out in a neutral atmosphere furnace.
Small samples were cut from the heat-treated plates and subjected to metallographic examination to observe different phases
present. The samples were mounted in epoxy mold, and then they
were ground using 2201000 grit abrasive SiC papers. Immediately
after the last grinding step the samples were washed with water,
rinsed with methanol and dried. The ne polishing was conducted
using 9,3 and 0.5 micron diamond paste. The specimens were
subsequently etched at room temperature using 2% Nital (2 ml
HNO3, and 98 ml Methyl Alcohol) to reveal the microstructure.
Scanning electron microscope was used to observe the microstructure of the heat-treated plates. Following metallographic
observations, the bulk hardness of the target plates were measured
according to ASTM E 140-02 using an AFFRI Vickers hardness tester
under 30 kg applied load for 15 sec. The average hardness of
a particular sample was reported from measurements over 10
locations.
Cylindrical tensile specimens were machined from the heattreated plates in the longitudinal orientation of the rolled plate. The
size and geometry of the specimens as well as the testing procedure
are in accordance with ASTM E8-93. It was tested at a strain rate of
4.8 101s1 using an Instron Universal Testing machine (Instron
0
60
-4
50
Ac1
200C
300C
400C
500C
Ac3
-6
40
Load (kN)
-2
-8
-10
20
-12
-14
-16
600
600C
30
10
700
800
900
1000
1100
1200
1300
Temperature (oC)
0
0
Displacement (mm)
Fig. 1. Differential Thermal Analysis curve showing austenitisation start (Ac1) and
nish (Ac3) temperatures.
244
Fig. 3. Scanning electron microstructures of heat-treated samples showing variation in neness of tempered martensite laths with tempering temperature. (a) As quenched from
910 C (b) Tempered at 200 C (c) Tempered at 300 C (d) Tempered at 400 C (e) Tempered at 500 C (f) Tempered at 600 C.
245
Table 3
Variation of mechanical and ballistic properties with tempering temperature.
Tempering Temperature ( C)
YS/UTS (VHN)
Hardness (J)
%Reduction (mm)
%Elongation
Charpy
DOP
0
200
300
400
500
600
1367
1417
1463
1433
1286
1146
1900
1808
1700
1587
1409
1247
0.72
0.78
0.86
0.90
0.91
0.92
586
555
518
490
442
381
44
48
43
48
53
60
9
12
7.5
10
12
16
19
31
22
26
38
85
16.5
12.6
15.5
16.0
17.6
20.5
4. Discussion
From DTA observation in Fig. 1, it is found that complete austenitisation takes place at 808 C. On the other hand from the
as quenched hardness measurements, it has been observed that
austenitisation at 910 C followed by quenching in oil gives the
maximum hardness (Table 2). Fig. 8 shows the X-ray diffraction
pattern of the heat-treated plates quenched from 850 C to room
temperature. The XRD pattern clearly exhibits high intensity peaks
corresponding to the martensite-Fe phase only. The lower hardness
values observed in quenching below 910 C can be probably
attributed to the formation of softer phases like ferrite, which can
not be detected by XRD due to low volume fraction (<5%). However,
a detailed transmission electron microscope study is required to
conrm the presence of any softer phase in the steel plates when
quenched below 910 C. The observation of maximum hardness at
910 C can be explained by understanding the dissolution of alloying elements. The dissolution of alloying elements including carbon
246
Fig. 5. Views of the front side of the target plates after projectile penetration. (a) As quenched sample (b) Tempered at 200 C sample (c) Tempered at 300 C sample (d) Tempered at
400 C sample (e) Tempered at 500 C sample (f) Tempered at 600 C sample.
from carbides increases with increase in austenitisation temperature. Thus, quenching from higher austenitisation temperature
leads to greater amount of carbon in the solution and a subsequent
increase in hardness. Beyond 910 C, grain growth of prior austenite
grains becomes signicant, which deteriorates hardness. The grain
growth after 910 C could be due to the absence of carbides that pin
the grain boundaries. Similar correlation of austenitisation
temperature with hardness has also been reported in other studies
on armour steels [9,12].
As expected, highest level of strength and hardness is observed
in the as quenched condition. This is due to the transformation of
harder martensite phase from austenite during quenching, Fig. 3
(a). Martensite formation is accompanied by a large amount of
distortion which rapidly increases the strength and hardness of
Needle
Length of the needle
outside of the crater
Lip Height
DOP
DOP (mm)
20
15
B
10
5
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
247
22
m: Martensite
400
20
DO P ( m m )
18
Intensity
300
16
14
12
200
10
Yield Strength
UTS
8
1000
100
1200
(211)m
(200)m
60
70
80
90
1800
2000
Position 2 ()
Fig. 8. X-ray diffraction pattern of the heat-treated plate quenched from 850 C.
decrease in YS occurred owing to following attributes: (i) coarsening of martensite laths, (ii) easy movement of dislocations by
thermal assistance and (iii) precipitation of cementite.
Presence of cracks in the inside crater wall of the as quenched
and 300 C tempered targets as observed in Fig. 5 (a) and (c), can be
attributed to loss of ductility and toughness. The drop in ductility
and charpy impact toughness at 300 C suggests the occurrence of
temper martensite embrittlement. Temper martensite embrittlement is evident from the fractographs of the specimen tempered at
300 C, Fig. 4 (b). Due to embrittlement, there is a change in mode of
fracture from complete ductile to a mixed mode type of fracture.
Temper martensite embrittlement is inherent in many ultra high
strength steels in the above mentioned tempering temperature
range and is characterized by a reduced impact toughness [4,13]. In
general temper martensite embrittlement is thought to be due to
the formation of carbides on decomposition of martensite [16].
Fig. 9 illustrates the correlation between strength properties and
ballistic performance. It can be very well seen that with increase in
tempering temperature DOP increases or decreases depending upon
the effect on the mechanical properties. DOP follows a gradual
increasing trend with decrease in tensile strength. However, DOP
follows a different pattern with YS than that with UTS. DOP keeps on
increasing irrespective of increase or decrease in YS. It is also
observed to be increasing irrespective of any change in ductility and
charpy impact energy, Fig. 10. Further, DOP not only depends upon
change in strength, ductility and toughness values but also depends
upon the degree of this change as is evident from Table 4.
From Table 3 and Fig. 9 it may be observed that ballistic properties exhibit a direct correlation with UTS and hardness. Many
earlier investigations have described the dependence of ballistic
penetration properties on the hardness of the target [1720].
Increase in target plate hardness enhances the erosion and fracture
of the projectile, in turn giving a lesser penetration. DOP in the as
quenched condition is observed to be higher than that of the steel
tempered at 200 C, although it has very high hardness. This can be
attributed to the fact of presence of internal stresses, which results
in lower toughness of the steel in as quenched condition. Although
strength values are highest but low toughness and presence of
DOP (mm)
50
1600
0
40
1400
Strength (MPa)
16
14
12
Impact Energy
10
Reduction of area
% Elongation
8
0
20
40
60
80
Mechanical Property
Fig. 10. Variation of DOP with ductility and Charpy impact energy.
100
248
Table 4
Table showing variation of mechanical and ballistic properties in different regions of
Fig. 7.
Region
AB
0200
BC
200300
CD
300400
DE
Temperature
Range ( C)
Observations
Serial No
400600
249
[22] Wolsky SP, Czanderna AW. Methods and phenomena 5, ballistic materials and
penetration mechanics. New York: Elsevier Scientic Publishing Company;
1982. pp. 145166.
[23] Borvik T, Dey S, Clausen AH. Perforation resistance of ve different highstrength steel plates subjected to small-arms projectiles. Int J Impact Eng
2009;36(7):94864.