The purpose of this study is to examine the projectile penetration resistance of the base metal and heat-affected zones of armor steel weldments. To ensure the proper quality of armor steel welded joints and associated ballistic protection, it is important to find the optimum heat input for armor steel welding. A total of two armor steel weldments made at heat inputs of 1.29 kJ/mm and 1.55 kJ/mm were tested for ballistic protection performance. The GMAW welding carried out employing a robot-controlled process. Owing to a higher ballistic limit, the heat-affected zone (HAZ) of the 1.29 kJ/mm weldment was found to be more resistant to projectile penetration than that of the 1.55 kJ/mm weldment. The ballistic performance of the weldments was determined by analyzing the microstructure of weldment heat-affected zones, the hardness gradients across the weldments and the thermal history of the welding heat inputs considered. The result showed that the ballistic resistance of heat affected zone exist as the heat input was decreased on 1.29 kJ/mm. It was found that 1.55 kJ/mm does not have ballistic resistance.

The process of welding armor steel is a complex process not only due to high percentage of carbon in the base metal, but also because of possible welding faults, appearing in the weld metal zone in the form of cracks and pores. Austenitic filler material is traditionally used for welding armor steels, thus avoiding the negative effect of hydrogen content due to slow diffusion towards the sensitive fusion line. For heavy structural engineering such as armored military vehicles, which are frequently under the effect of impact and dynamic load, it is important to know the dynamic properties of the most sensitive area of welded joints, the weld metal zone. Instrumented impact testing was made on Charpy V specimens. The impact energy results were 56 J and 29 J for crack initiation and propagation, respectively. Due to a significant interest in quantification of material resistance to crack initiation and propagation, the fatigue crack growth rate was measured in the welded metal zone, while the resistance to crack growth in the weld metal was tested by the amount of austenite transformed into martensite. Accordingly, the threshold stress concentration factor was 10 MPa m(1/2). XRD spectral analysis revealed direct transformation of gamma - austenite into alpha' - martensite.