Ceramic armor with controlled pore size dispersion

An anti-ballistic armor element, comprising a ceramic body comprising a sintered material consisting of ceramic grains with a Vickers hardness of more than 5 GPa, the total volume of the pores of said material being between 0.5 and 10%, said ceramic body being characterized in that:

• the cumulative volume of pores with a diameter of between 30 and 100 micrometers represents between 0.2 and 2.5% of the volume of said material,
• the cumulative volume of pores with a diameter greater than 100 micrometers is less than 0.2% of the volume of said material,
• the rest of said total pore volume consists of pores with a diameter of less than 30 micrometers;
• and
• wherein the distribution by volume of the diameter of the pores of said material is multimodal and comprises at least a first peak with a maximum within a range of pore diameters comprised between 0.1 and 15 micrometers and a second peak with a maximum within a pore diameter interval of between 40 and 80 micrometers.