The purpose of this study was to develop and utilize an instrumented football helmet capable of monitoring head Impacts during controlled situations. The helmet was equipped with three (3) microminiature accelerometers, attached to the inner surface of the shell. Within the transducer system were charge amplifiers and hard wire connections to a portable tape recorder. Calibration of the helmet system was performed via pendulum impacting. Four (4) energy levels were employed in the calibration procedures, with a maximum acceleration of 500 g. Four male subjects were used to perform regular football activities such as blocking and tackling while wearing the helmet. High speed cinematography was used to obtain the data in the man-to-man blocking and tackling tasks.

The results revealed that the helmet system was suitable for measuring peak acceleration when compared to the response of the pendulum accelerometry. On the field, blocking activities yielded accelerations in excess of 500 g in some cases, with a mean value of 349 g, whereas the tackling drills were measured at a mean level of 280 g. Average helmet velocities prior to impact were 17.4 feet per second for blocking and 14.5 feet per second for tackling.

From these results, it was concluded that the instrumented helmet could be utilized to measure peak accelerations of the helmet during impacts with some degree of confidence. Also, it was concluded that pendulum impacting was a suitable method by which an instrumented helmet could be calibrated for use in measuring peak acceleration.