Criteria for head impact protection by motorcycle helmets

Schuller, E.; König, W.; Beier, G.

Affiliations

¹Institute for Legal Medicine, University of Munich

Abstract

The objective of this study is to establish criteria for head impact protection to be required for optimal performance of motorcycle helmets. Head injury severity sustained in real accidents was compared with test results obtained by laboratory drop-tests according to ECE-R 22, considering residual damage of protective padding as an indicator for head impact loading. 15 integral helmets were collected from real motorcycle crashes providing basic important accident data concerning head injury and head impact characteristics. For new helmets similiar to those used in the real accident sample, comparable damage was simulated in laboratory drop-tests using various anvils and impact areas and applying step by step increasing impact velocities. Comparing deceleration profiles from drop tests representing a best as possible approximation of residual accident damage with corresponding head injury severity (MS), the following principal results and conclusions were obtained:

Increasing head injury severity is not closely related to increasing residual deformation of the energy absorbing liner.
Critical head injury (XIS 5) may occur for impacts which are related to rather low translational head deceleration of approximately 150 g or lower measured in the ECE-R 22 headfonn. High rotational acceleration might be decisive in these particular accident cases.
Test results suggest that ECE-R 22 limits should be signtjkantly reduced to optimize head impact protection.

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Cited By (4)

Year	Entry
2006	DeMarco AL, Chimich DD, Gardiner JC, Nightingale RW, Siegmund GP. Motorcycle helmet impact response: comparison of helmet type and impact severity. In: Proceedings of the 34th International Workshop on Human Subjects for Biomechanical Research. 2006.15-24.
2007	DeMarco AL, Gardiner JC, Wilkinson CC, Hassan EA, Siegmund GP. Predicting motorcycle helmet impact severity from residual crush damage. In: Proceedings of the 35th International Workshop on Human Subjects for Biomechanical Research. 2007.47-56.
2010	DeMarco AL, Chimich DD, Gardiner JC, Nightingale RW, Siegmund GP. The impactresponse of motorcyclehelmets at differentimpactseverities. Accid Anal Prev. November 2010;42(6):1778-1784.
2017	Bonin SJ. Dynamic Response and Residual Helmet Liner Crush Using Cadaver Heads and Standard Headforms [PhD thesis]. University of Miami; May 2017.