Effect of Aging on the Ballistic Performance of AA 7017 Alloy

Pradipta Kumar Jena; K. Suresh; K. Sivakumar; R. K. Mandal; A. K. Singh

doi:10.14429/dsj.73.18639

Pradipta Kumar Jena DRDO-Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad - 500 058, India https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3377-2149
K. Suresh International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials, Hyderabad - 500 005, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7818-4079
K. Sivakumar DRDO-Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad - 500 058, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5552-1626
R. K. Mandal Department of Metallurgical Engineering, IIT (BHU), Varanasi – 221005, India https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6036-4955
A. K. Singh DRDO-Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad - 500 058, India https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5773-6620

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14429/dsj.73.18639

Keywords: 7xxx AAalloy, Aging, Texture, Mechanical property, Ballistic property

Abstract

This study presents the effect of aging on microstructure, texture, mechanical and ballistic properties of AA-7017 aluminium alloy. AA-7017 alloy is subjected to three different aging namely under-aging, peak-aging and over-aging. Significant difference is observed in the mechanical properties after aging. The alloy exhibits maximum strength and hardness in the peak-aged condition. From texture measurements, it is noticed that the overall intensity of orientation distribution function increases from under-aged to peak-aged condition. The AA-7017 aged plates are impacted with 7.62 mm steel core projectiles at 820±10 m/s to evaluate the ballistic performance. It is noticed that AA-7017 alloy displays best ballistic resistance in peak-aged condition. Distorted material flow lines and adiabatic shear band induced cracking is detected in post ballistic microstructure. The ballistic performance of AA-7017 alloy is correlated with the variations in the microstructure and mechanical properties with aging