Ballistic Impact Behaviour of a Tempered Bainitic Steel Against 7.62 mm Armour Piercing Projectile

Abstract

In this study, occurence of failure after the interaction between an armour piercing 7.62 mm caliber projectile and a tempered bainitic steel has been investigated. The shot was performed at zero degree with a projectile velocity of 840 m/s. After the shot, microstructural and fractographical examinations were carried out on the sample taken from the perforated region. In the etched sample, it was observed that the morphology of the original microstructure had changed and adiabatic shear bands (ASBs) were formed in regions close to the direction of penetration. Main failure is ductile (plastic) deformation was followed by cleavage after shot. Cracks due to adiabatic shear band and formation of abrasive wear were seen. The perforation mode of the steel was a typical petalling.

Experimental study on the behavior of wear resistant steels under high velocity single particle impacts

“…The regions subjected to high rate shear deformation may also undergo localization to thin shear bands, known as adiabatic shear banding (ASB) [7]. The ASBs have been reported to be responsible for example for fragmentation [8], damage [9,10] and ballistic failure [11,12] in metallic materials. In high strength steels the adiabatic shear bands are generally divided into deformation shear bands and transformation bands.…”

Development of a New Armor Steel and its Ballistic Performance

“…In order to obtain high hardness values, studies on alloying design and heat treatment conditions are very popular to improve the ballistic performance of the steels 4-7 . On the other hand, toughness is the another critical property for a given armor material under a dynamic attack of projectiles having high kinetic energies 8 . It is generally considered that armor steels having high toughness will be very useful to resist ballistic impacts without being fractured.…”

Study based on the analysis of valence electron structure for adiabatic shear sensitivity of 30CrMnMo and C45E4 steel in process of high‐speed penetration

“…Although the quantity and the shape of ASBs are all different, the very large and non‐homogenous deformation in ASBs may produce micropores and microcracks. They are the main factors causing the damage and fracture of targets …”

“…Many researches have shown that adiabatic shear bands (ASBs) also play an important role in the ballistic performance of armour steels in addition to the factors described earlier. They directly affect the nucleation and propagation of cracks besides the inclusions within the matrix and cause the fragmentation of armour steels in process of high‐speed penetration . Thus, the material that is not prone to adiabatic shear failure is usually used to improve the resisting impact ability for the targets in high‐speed penetration.…”