Ultra High-Hardness Armour Steel
The role of armour in protecting military personnel is critical. It’s a role that Tata Steel have taken very seriously over the last 10 years and have invested heavily in the research and development of bainitic steels with super fine microstructures.
Our profiled and perforated 600BHN steel is used in a number of appliqué and armour applications, for example to increase the protection of the basic hull on military vehicles.
Super Bainite represents a new genre of steel with a unique nono-scale structure produced by heat treatment, which creates remarkable physical properties without having to use expensive alloying additions. The hot rolled and annealed steel is profiled by laser cutting and perforated by either drilling or mechanically punching before heat treatment. The heat treatment process uses standard austempering equipment and involves heating to around 900°C, quenching in air or salt bath and then holding at about 250°C for an extended period. The austenite phase progressively transforms into a nanofine bainitic microstructure with time, producing the final properties, including ultra high-hardness (more than 600 Brinell), providing exceptional ballistics performance, especially against armour piercing bullets.
The ballistic performance of perforated super bainite steel armour is at least twice that of conventional rolled homogenous steel armour in terms of ballistic mass efficiency, allowing a reduction in gauge for the same protection level. Weight reduction is particularly important when armoured military vehicles traverse foreign landscapes. Such environments typically include poor road infrastructure, especially weak bridges and transport by air using both transport helicopters and fix wing aircraft.
Benefits
- Superb ballistic performance
- High ballistic mass efficiency
- Class leading perforated design
- Produced to your exact specification
Tata Steel
Reception Building
Trostre Works
Llanelli
United Kingdom
T +44 (0) 782 708 4340
