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Technical Paper

Injury Mitigation Performance of a Head Protection Wear with Polyurethane Honeycomb

2015-04-14
2015-01-1443
Falls in the elderly population is an important concern to individuals and in the healthcare industry. When the head is left unprotected, head impact levels can reach upwards of 500 g (gravitational acceleration), which is a level that can cause serious injury or death. A protective system for a fall injury needs to be designed with specific criteria in mind including energy protection level, thickness, stiffness, and weight among others. The current study quantifies the performance of a protective head gear design for persons prone to falls. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the injury mitigation of head protection gear made from a patented system of polyurethane honeycomb and dilatant materials. To that end, a twin wire fall system equipped with a drop arm that includes a Hybrid-III head/neck assembly was used. The head was instrumented with an accelerometer array. The test apparatus captures impact velocity and translational acceleration components simultaneously.
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