Development and Ballistic Testing of a New Class of Auto-Tempered High- Hard Steels Under Military Specification MIL-DTL-46100E

摘要

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) was directed to investigate various ways to expand current steel armor plate production as the large military demand for armor plate exceeded the current production capacity at U.S. steel facilities for quench and tempered high-hard armor (HHA) steel plate. The solution was to expand the availability of HHA steels under the current HHA military specification (MIL-DTL-46100) to include a new class of air-quenched, auto-tempered steels that do not use existing water quench and temper facilities. Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (ATI) developed an auto- tempered steel alloy, ATI 500-MIL (trademark of ATI Properties, Inc.), that has physical and mechanical properties that meet the current HHA specification. ARL procured sufficient amounts of ATI 500-MIL plate to allow acceptance testing and subsequent certification of ATI 500-MIL plate as complying with the First Article requirements of the newly revised MIL-DTL-46100E specification. This report documents the development of ATI 500-MIL plate and subsequent ballistic testing and inclusion into the specification as Class-2 auto-tempered HHA steel.