The design of advanced performance high strength low-carbon martensitic armour steels

Characteristics of martensite as a function of the Ms temperature in low-carbon armour steel plates

“…X-ray diffraction in an X'Pert PRO PANalytical equipment was used to determine the phases present (particularly the % retained austenite) in the steels and their lattice parameters. The results of the above analyses were finally correlated to the ballistic performances reported in [6,21].…”

“…three commercial armour steels were reported in [6,21]. Table 5 extracted from the ballistic report [6] is quoted here.…”

“…three commercial armour steels were reported in [6,21]. Table 5 extracted from the ballistic report [6] is quoted here. It appears from the ballistic report that the plate martensite microstructures formed at lower M s temperatures offered the best performance against ballistic impact.…”

“…It was found that high hardness or high mechanical properties were not reliable factors in predicting their ballistic performance [3][4][5][6]. A morphological/microstructural approach is hence rendered necessary to enable the prediction of the ballistic performance and to reduce the design duration and cost of developing new armour steels.…”

Material characterization of a novel new armour steel

“…Hardness is an indicator of tensile strength and as extensive analytical work [2][3][4][5] relies almost entirely on the tensile strength of the material, the use of material hardness as a ballistic performance indicator is entirely valid in certain cases. Recent work [6] indicates, however that material hardness alone might not be the only required mechanical property for optimal ballistic performance. The development of Dual-Phase, TRIP and especially TWIP alloys [7] (with tensile strength of ≈1700MPa at 45% strain), indicates that enhanced plastic energy absorption could be attained with higher work-hardening rates.…”