Chapter 1 It is necessary to determine material properties (stiffness, failure strain, etc) of human facial bones to use them in FE models

to simulate and analyze real life automotive crash incidents involving facial bone fractures as they occur frequently than cranial bone fractures (although comparatively less severe) and still cause socio-economic concerns. Chapter 2 A NASS-CDS database survey on crashes involving skull fracture (including both cranial and facial bone fracture) since the introduction of an improvised AIS90 injury severity scale (better injury location/type classification than previous) was performed over recent times (1993-2008) to confirm higher probability of facial bone fracture than cranial fracture as also to identify key facial bone regions having low fracture tolerance and thus high fracture probability. Chapter 3 An anatomical study of the identified facial bones was done to understand the geometry variation and nature of loading in real life crashes. Further, a literature survey was done over existing facial bone testing research to understand the pros/cons (eg all structural properties defined, no indication of material response) in different testing methods used then so as to design this study to avoid the cons while using the pros (physical testing data available over structural responses) as a reference later. Chapter 4, 5, 6 In order to obtain material properties of facial bones, a reverse engineering approach was used in which load-displacement curves obtained from facial bone samples through bending tests were compared with those obtained from a series of FE simulations run for varying stiffness (E) and failure strain (FS) values to obtain the required E, FS values through response surface based optimization technique wherein the load-displacement curves matched most accurately (lowest %error). Chapter 4 dealt with the physical testing section obtaining test load-displacement curves and a statistical analysis was done to understand the results while comparing them with existing research. Chapter 5 dealt with the creation and running of FE models for facial bone simulations. Chapter 6 dealt with the optimization technique used for reverse engineering and the obtained E, FE results for all facial bone samples. A statistical analysis was done to understand variations (if any) between the different facial bone regions/PMHS. Chapter 7 Conclusion based on discussions from 4,5,6 were listed with possible future scope of improvement.