Abstract
Steel composites for application as protective plates were produced via diffusion bonding. Cold work tool steels were combined with a precipitation hardening steel or a maraging steel using a deformation dilatometer and a vacuum furnace at 1150 °C for 8 h in total. Subsequently, a heat treatment was applied to achieve the final mechanical properties. The microstructure of the interface was investigated by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, electron backscatter diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and hardness measurements. The results are compared with a simulation of the diffusion of elements performed by MatCalc. Both composites achieve high hardness near the surface of the cold work tool steels, which can have a positive effect on the destruction of projectiles on impact. The influence of carbon diffusion can be observed up to a depth of 3 mm from the interface. As a result of carbon diffusion, soft zones are formed on both sides of the interface, which can be attributed to decarburization, phase transformation and carbide formation. The tough back layer is designed to absorb the remaining energy of the projectile. The combination of a hard front layer and a tough rear layer provides an optimal combination of materials against ballistic threats.
Highlights
Composite materials made of metals and ceramics have been used in the military industry for several decades to increase the protection against ballistic threats [1]
Cold work tool steels were diffusion bonded with a precipitation hardening steel using a deformation dilatometer
Cold work tool steels were diffusion bonded with precipitation hardening (PH) and maraging steels using a deformation dilatometer
Summary
Composite materials made of metals and ceramics have been used in the military industry for several decades to increase the protection against ballistic threats [1]. The concept of a hard and a tough layer to improve the protection against ballistic threats can be realized with two steel sheets with different mechanical properties [3,4] This has the advantages of better processability and lower costs and could be used in the automotive industry for civil armored vehicles. While vacuum hot roll bonding is commonly used for the production of stainless steel clad plates and is well investigated, there are still limited available reports on diffusion bonding [7,8,9]. These methods have different approaches to join two sheets, the influence of some process parameters can be compared. Liu et al [12] investigated the bonding strength and oxide
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