Hazard rate behavior of interior ballistics performance based on optimal reliability modeling

The field of ballistic protection assessment is challenging due to the need of satisfying high precision requirements with a limited sample size. Identifying the probability of perforation at a specified projectile velocity is the most common way to quantify the ballistic resistance of a given protection structure. Recently several techniques have been developed for this purpose to assess perforation for all possible velocities. The main drawback of these techniques is the use of the normality assumption under which perforation velocities are expected to follow a Gaussian normal distribution where . Accordingly, any parameter of interest is estimated using the characteristic identified Gaussian distribution. In this work, Interior ballistic data obtained from real tests of intelligence mortar bomb and each selected life distributions applied to the external ballistic data, using the method of maximum likelihood to estimate the model parameters. Then, estimation results from the models compared and evaluated. Different criteria for assessing the goodness of each model investigated. The objective is to identify criteria that can distinguish which life distribution produces the best estimate of the performance of a particular armor model. Another objective of this work is to apply optimal model for obtaining different probabilities, investigating mission reliability, and studying hazard rate behavior of ballistic performance. Lifetime distributions are considered and the Mixture Normal distribution provided optimal results to assess and compare the estimations of ballistic performance data.