The porosity and tensile strength of convex-faced aspirin tablets formed under a compaction pressure in the range 40-320 MPa and at punch velocities in the range 0.008 to 500 mm s-1 have been determined. The material tensile strength, sigma f, was calculated from the observed fracture load, Ps, using the equation of Pitt et al (1988): sigma f = 10 Ps/pi D2(2.84 t/D - 0.126 t/W + 3.15 W/D + 0.01)-1 where D is the tablet diameter, t is the overall tablet thickness and W is the central cylinder thickness. Tablets formed at lower compaction pressures had a higher porosity and lower tensile strength than those formed at higher compaction pressures. Tablets of face curvature ratio (D/R) in the range 0.25-0.67 and a normalized cylinder length (W/D) of 0.2 had the optimum tensile strength. (R is the radius of curvature of the tablet face.) Tablets formed at high compaction rates were significantly weaker than those formed at lower compaction rates.