Adelaide T&E Systems have recently expanded their product development to include a Frangible Ballistic Head (FBH) intended for use in forensic ballistic investigation. The FBH provides researchers with a level of biofidelity and realism previously unavailable to the forensic community. The FBH has been developed with complete Computer Aided Design (CAD) to facilitate the manufacture of all moulds and associated tooling. This scientific approach to manufacturing yields extremely accurate and consistent physical models whilst allowing the implementation of Finite Element Analysis (FEA). The FBH is composed of an elastomeric surrogate skin/soft tissue exterior, a seamless composite skull (that has an accurate interior shape) and anatomically representative elastomeric dura, including falx and tentorium. The FBH is filled with surrogate brain tissue that conforms to a recognised ballistic gelatin formulation & may be modified to respond to luminol, facilitating blood spatter analysis following ballistic impact. All materials may be coloured to the client’s specifications. In addition, Adelaide T&E Systems also integrates an attachment plate within the FBH skull that allows attachment to the Hybrid III neck for improved response. Of course, as our designs are modular, the FBH with Hybrid III neck and adaptor plate can easily be mounted to the Human Thoracic Surrogate (HTS) to ensure a target response of unsurpassed accuracy.

The four images below were captured 2ms apart, and show the FBH’s response to a 7.62x39mm MSC FMJ round travelling at 2750fps.