Evaluation and Demonstration of the Viability of Salt Bath Solution Heat Treatment for Depleted Uranium Penetrators

摘要

An MM&T program to evaluate and demonstrate the viability of a salt bath solutionizing heat treatment for large caliber DU penetrators (0.75% by weight titanium) was conducted. One hundred M774 core blanks were evaluated to develop and verify the various process stages (e.g., outgassing salt residence times, etc.) of salt heat treatment. A viable salt bath heat treatment process was developed through this program. A pilot lot of 40 finished machined M774 penetrators was fabricated under the guidelines of this program and is available for ballistic testing. Included in this report is a general analysis of facility requirements to implement salt solutionizing heat treatment into the Aerojet production stream.