High s
treng
th-
to-weigh
t ra
tio of non-ferrous alloys, such as aluminium, magnesium and
ti
tanium alloys, are considered
to be possible replacemen
t of widely accep
ted s
teels in
transpor
ta
tion and au
tomobile sec
tors. Among
these alloys, magnesium is self explosive and
ti
tanium is cos
tlier, and aluminium is mos
t likely
to replace s
teels. Applica
tion of aluminium or i
ts alloys is also
though
t of as an appropria
te replacemen
t in defence field, especially
to enhance
the easiness in mobili
ty of comba
t vehicles while main
taining
the same s
tandard as
tha
t of conven
tional armour grade s
teels. Hence mos
t of
the inves
tiga
tions have been confined
to aluminium or i
ts alloys as base ma
terial and open an era of developing
the newer composi
te ma
terials
to address
the major limi
ta
tion, i.e.
tribological proper
ties. The surface composi
tes can be fabrica
ted by incorpora
ting
the ceramic carbides like silicon carbide, carbides of
transi
tion me
tals and oxides of aluminium using surface modifica
tion
techniques, such as high energy laser mel
t trea
tmen
t, high energy elec
tron beam irradia
tion and
thermal spray process which are based on fusion rou
te. These
techniques yield
the fusion rela
ted problems, such as in
terfacial reac
tion, pin holes, shrinkage cavi
ties or voids and o
ther cas
ting rela
ted defec
ts, and pave
the way
to need of an efficien
t technique which mus
t be based on solid s
ta
te. Recen
tly developed fric
tion s
tir processing
technique was used in
the presen
t inves
tiga
tion for surface modifica
tion of AA7075 aluminum alloy, which is an al
terna
tive
to s
teels. In
the presen
t inves
tiga
tion, 160 μm sized boron carbide powder was procured and was reduced
to 60 μm and 30 μm using high energy ball mill. Subsequen
tly
these powders were used
to fabrica
te
the surface composi
tes using fric
tion s
tir processing.
Ballistic performance testing as per the military standard (JIS.0108.01) was carried out. In the present work, an analytical method of predicting the ballistic behavior of surface composites was developed. This method was based on energy balance, i.e., the initial energy of impact is same as that of energy absorbed by multi layers. An attempt also has been made to validate the analytical results with the experimental findings. Variation between the analytical and experimental results may be accounted due to the assumptions considering such as isotropic behavior of target and shearing area of contact as cylindrical instead of conical interface As the analytical model yields the ballistic performance in the closer proximity of experimentally obtained, it can be considered to be an approximation to evaluate the ballistic performance of targets.