Effect of hardfaced interlayer thickness on ballistic performance of armour steel welds

Due to weld thermal cycles and under matching fillers, the armour steel welded joints showed poor ballistic performance compared to the base metal. An attempt was made to enhance the ballistic performance of armour steel welded joints by depositing hardfaced (HF) interlayer between austenitic stainless steel weld metal. Though this method yielded marginal improvements in ballistic performance, cracks were observed in between base metal and HF layers. A novel method was proposed by the same authors to eliminate these cracks by depositing a soft buttering layer using austenitic stainless steel (ASS) consumable in between base metal and HF layer shows additional improvements on ballistic performance. Buttering layer enhanced the ballistic immunity by keeping the weld layer intact successfully at the time of impact, but the bullet was pierced through. In this investigation, an attempt has been made to stop the bullet completely by varying HF interlayer thickness. This paper reveals the effect HF layer thickness on ballistic performance of shielded metal arc welded armour steel welds. A HF interlayer thickness of 0.3 times, the plate thickness is found to be optimum from this investigation. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.