Facial injury detection in the crash laboratory needs new test devices and procedures. The increasing usage of improved restraint systems has reduced the severe head injuries. Instead a pattern of less severe facial injuries has emerged, e.g. the facial airbag contact.

The paper presents a comparison of the stiffness characteristics and the initial kinematics response of the facial of cadavers and mechanical models. The two mechanical models, based on a modified Hybrid IH dummy head, detect localized facial forces. One was equipped with a frangible facial insert, and for the second, a load sensing face (15F) was developed with piezoelectric sensors providing pressure times histories. Design properties and characteristics of the LSF are described as well as the sensor technique used.

Cadavers and dummy were fitted with triaxial accelerometers installed in the sagittal plane of the head at the coronal and lambdoidal sutures. The faces of all test subjects were impacted at the sub—nasal maxilla and nasion by a horizontal steel bar of 25 mm diameter.

Furthemore, a mathematical model of the human face is now in progress in an explicit finite element code.

To complete the knowledge of bone injuries obtained previously, specifics tests to analyse the soft tissue injuries, were carried out.

All these results from tests are used to appreciate the means to evaluate the facial lesions and to understand the facial behaviour such as an interface, e.g. between the airbag and the head.