Armor Plate

For more than 35 years, ATI's Washington, PA plant has produced a roll bonded, dual hardness armor plate. The product consists of a high hardness front side and a softer back side. The purpose of the hard front side is to break up or flatten the projectile while the function of the softer back side is to capture the projectile.

The composition of both faces is a Ni-Mo-Cr alloy steel, but the front side contains a higher carbon content, which leads to a higher hardness after heat treatment. The front and back sides are roll bonded by a multi-step, proprietary process which involves heating an assembly to a specific temperature and hot rolling it until the two sides develop a strong, metallurgical bond. This bond is crucial in achieving good ballistics characteristics. The roll-bonded plates are annealed, sheared and flattened. A careful and precise heat treatment is necessary to achieve optimum ballistics performance.