Improving the ballistic immunity of armour steel weldments by plasma transferred arc (PTA) hardfacing

This investigation describes about improving the ballistic immunity of armour steel joints which are fabricated by sandwiching of plasma transferred arc (PTA) hardfaced interlayers in between soft austenitic stainless steel (ASS) welds. From the results, the welds with sandwiched interlayer stopped all the projectiles successfully, irrespective of processes used, whereas welds without sandwiched interlayer were failed. In order to know the cause of failure, a detailed metallographic examination was carried out. The variation in microstructure and hardness at various zones of the weld are discussed. For the first time, it was found that the armour steel could be hardfaced by the PTA process with tungsten carbide powder.