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Ceramic Plates Do Not Spall: The Truth About Ceramic and Steel Armor

ceramic body armor
β€œCeramic plates spall” is a claim that many of us have heard in recent months; you may have even seen the video made by AR500 Armor with the ring of balloons showcasing ceramic plates β€œspalling.” This claim is untrue.
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The video below has several inconsistencies that will be addressed. This test was not performed correctly, such as using ammo that the ceramic plate is not rated for. In this article, I will dispel the tests shown in the video and provide insight into how these different armor systems work and what spalling truly is.

What Is Spalling?

First, we must define and understand what spalling is. The correct technical term for this phenomenon is β€œbullet splash” or β€œbullet fragmentation.”

Bullet splash occurs when a softer projectile (take, for example, lead core, FMJ, or mild steel core) impacts a surface of superior hardness that does NOT deform or break.

In the case of AR500 armor, when a projectile strikes the surface, the bullet squashes or mushrooms, then explodes into dozens of small fragments. 𝑴𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 π’‡π’“π’‚π’ˆπ’Žπ’†π’π’•π’” π’‡π’π’π’π’π’˜ π’‚π’π’π’π’ˆ 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒓 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒍 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 π’”π’•π’“π’Šπ’Œπ’† 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆.

These fragments travel at a high velocity and will penetrate plate carrier fabric.
The “spall coating” on AR500 plates does very little to stop this. Generally, after 1-2 shots, chunks will begin to blow off of the coating, or the fragmentation will begin to delaminate the coating from the plate.

Many people focus on the thickness of the spall coating on the front of the plates, which does not help when the fragmentation exits the sides of the plate where the coating is thinnest. (Remember, fragmentation follows the strike face).

The video below shows a very different result from what AR500 Armor shows in their video. Buffman R.A.N.G.E. has a history of testing armor accurately and has an excellent video here showcasing the dangers of bullet fragmentation. The video shows failure after a few rounds.

The best analogy I can give is if you hurled a tomato against a concrete wall. The concrete wall does not deform; however, the tomato will disintegrate and splatter against the wall. The same phenomenon happens with steel plates, only instead of pieces of tomato, you get hot metal fragments.

Linked below is an ultra-slow-motion video of projectiles impacting a steel plate. You will see the projectiles squash against the plate and shatter into pieces.

Why Ceramic Plates do not Spall

To understand why ceramic plates don’t spall, we first must understand how ceramic plates work, and how the different components of a ceramic plate function.
For our purposes, we will be using a standalone level 4 ceramic plate as an example.
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Ceramic plates are composed of two primary pieces: the ceramic strike face or core, and the ballistic or trauma backer. The ceramic strike face is generally composed of aluminum oxide (Al203), silicon carbide (SiC), or boron carbide (B4C). These industrial ceramics are rate at about a 9-10 on the Mohs Hardness scale. These ceramics are incredibly hard (harder than AR500); however, they are more brittle (not fragile).
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The ceramic strike face or core is what is used to break up the incoming projectile and absorb some of its energy. When a projectile impacts a ceramic plate, it will break up into smaller pieces as well as pulverize a small, localized section of the ceramic.
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Then, the residual bullet fragments and bullet jacket are caught by the ballistic backer, which is generally composed of a type of polyethylene (PE), Kevlar, or fiberglass.
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The important distinction we see here with ceramic plates is that the bullet does not fragment ON the strike face as it does with steel. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 π’‡π’“π’‚π’ˆπ’Žπ’†π’π’•π’” π’ˆπ’ π’Šπ’π’•π’ 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒓𝒆 π’„π’‚π’–π’ˆπ’‰π’• π’ƒπ’š 𝒕𝒉𝒆 π’ƒπ’‚π’„π’Œπ’†π’“.
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Here is a good visual of how a ceramic plate defeats projectiles. This will give you the best visual representation of what is going on.
ceramic body armor

What Happened in the AR500 Video?

What you see in the AR500 Armor video are ceramic shards. These are relatively low-velocity pieces of ceramic (not pieces of the bullet) that reasonably will be stopped by any plate carrier material. These ceramic shards are essentially like sand, enough to pop balloons, but not enough to slice veins or go into flesh. This is in contrast to the bullet fragmentation on AR500 plates. Linked to the bottom is an ultra-slow motion video of a Hoplite plate being tested. This was done at a ballistic laboratory where NIJ tests are performed. You will see the ceramic dust.
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In the AR500 Armor video, they tested a pure polyethylene plate against an M855 projectile (that it is not rated for). The M855 projectile went STRAIGHT through, yet the balloons still somehow popped. Keep in mind what you have just now learned about bullet splash: polyethylene is a type of ballistic polymer. How does a steel core projectile fragment on a polymer plate and pop balloons?
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AR500’s coating may stop the fragmentation from one or two shots, but with ceramic plates, you won’t have to worry about fragmentation even from six or seven shots because it simply does not happen.
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Below you can see ceramic dust fly out when a bullet impacts a ceramic plate, and most of the dust would be captured by the plate carrier.
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