Development of FeMnAl Armor for Additive Manufacturing Repair of Ground Vehicles

Rolled homogenous armor (RHA) is used widely in a variety of ground vehicle platforms to protect against ballistic penetration. FeMnAl high alloy steel has been evaluated for its potential weight reduction benefits as a direct replacement for mild steel, showing near-equivalent performance with a 12-18% reduction in density. Direct energy deposition (DED) can be used for production and repair of high alloy steel components using a powder feedstock.  Scrap or virgin  feedstock can be used to produce the steel which is subsequently atomized by high pressure argon. Recent atomization results at MolyWorks with RHA steel and FeMnAl have shown a large portion of the powder produced was in the desired size range for DED. The following program will develop the production of FeMnAl metal powder and direct energy deposition additive manufactuing as a viable techniques for ground combat vehicles repair.