AbstractPorous sintered steels, because of porosity, present low tensile elongation and impact strength, suggesting reduced ductility and consequently poor reliability in structural applications. However, they present some typical features of ductile materials. To study the reliability of these materials, some Fe‐C‐P alloys were selected and tested by means of the Weibull analysis. The results are very encouraging, since they demonstrate that porous sintered steels may be compared to conventional structural steels. The values of the Weibull modulus are affected by the chemical composition, varying between 20 and 55. The aim of this paper is to correlate the microstructural characteristics and the fracture behaviour of the specimens, pointing out how the intrinsic properties of the microstructural constituents affect reliabil