The Tolerance and Response of the Frontal Bone to Blunt Impact

The current understanding of the response of the frontal bone to blunt impact is limited. Previous studies have utilized vastly different methods which prevents statistical analyses to determine the tolerance of the frontal bone. The purpose of this study is to determine the tolerance of the frontal bone to blunt impact and to define corridors describing its forcedisplacement response. The response corridors were used to evaluate the biofidelity of the Facial and Ocular CountermeasUre Safety (FOCUS) headform, a sophisticated headform capable of measuring forces imposed on eight separate facial regions. Risk functions for fracture were developed using parametric and non-parametric techniques suggesting that 2,500 N represents a 50% risk of fracture. The use of acoustic emission is essential due to the increase in impactor force after fracture onset. The force-displacement response of the frontal bone was found to vary by the type of fracture sustained by the subject. Subjects that were found to have a frontal sinus present within the impacted region had a statistically higher risk of sustaining a fracture. The response of the FOCUS headform was within the force-displacement corridors defined for the cadaveric response. 1 This paper has not been peerreviewed and should not be referenced in open literature.