In recent years, the "mean strain criterion" (MSC) for head impacts has been re-evaluated and an improved version formulated. The old msc models were upgraded and reported at a previous IRCOBI conference. Based on these models, now called "translational head injury models" (THIM) and 37 lateral head impacts to three species of primates, a new head injury criteria is presented. In this study, it was assumed that the thim are lumped parameter models of the head and that the elements of the models, in a broad sense have a physical counterpart in the head. It was also assumed that energy going into the head (model) is one of the major parameters that cause head injury in an impact situation. Furthermore, it was postulated that the higher the impact energy level, the greater the potential for head injury. The energy stored or dissipated by each model element is plotted with respect to time. The peak energy or power values were correlated with the abbreviated injury scale (AIS) or skull fracture. The result of this effort is the translational energy criteria (TEC) in the form of injury predictive functions for both skull fracture or brain contusion. The acceleration response of the large mass of the lateral thim was used to compute the head injury criteria (HIC) for each primate head impact and correlated with the AIS injury number. It was concluded that the translational energy criteria from the thim and the hic values from the thim, both correlated very well with head injury. But, the tec was more comprehensive and revealed more injury detail than the hic.