An Investigation into Hot Deformation Characteristics and Processing Maps of High-Strength Armor Steel

The isothermal hot compression tests of high-strength armor steel over wide ranges of strain rates (0.01-10 /s) and deformation temperatures (950-1100 A degrees C) are carried out using Gleeble thermo-simulation machine. The true stress-strain data obtained from the experiments are employed to establish the constitutive equations based on the strain-compensated Arrhenius model. With strain-compensated Arrhenius model, good agreement between the experimental and predicted values is achieved, which represents the highest accuracy in comparison with the other models. The hot deformation activation energy is estimated to be 512 kJ/mol. By employing dynamic material model, the processing maps of high-strength armor steel at various strains are established. A maximum efficiency of about 45% of power dissipation is obtained at high temperature and low strain rate. Due to the high power dissipation efficiency and excellent processing ability in dynamic recrystallization zone for metal material, the optimum processing conditions are selected such that the temperature range is between 1050 and 1100A degrees C and the strain rate range is between 0.01 and 0.1/s. Transmission electron microscopy observations show that the dislocation density is directly associated with the value of processing efficiency.