The relation between ballastic efficiency and compressive strength of ceramic tiles

Ballistic tests with armor piercing projectiles on different ceramic tiles are presented. The tests were conducted using the thick-backing configuration, which is a new experimental technique to evaluate ballistic efficiencies of ceramic tiles. The residual penetration of the projectile into a thick metallic backing plate, which supports the ceramic tile, is measured. It is shown that the ballistic efficiencies of the different tiles increase monotonically with their normalized effective strength. This strength parameter is defined as the average of the static and dynamic compressive strengths divided by the density of the ceramic. A simple analysis is presented which accounts for the linear dependence of the ballistic efficiency on the normalized effective strength.