Evaluating the effect of anti rotational technologies in oblique helmet impacts using a biofidelic head form

Engineering of Sport 15 - Proceedings from the 15th International Conference on the Engineering of Sport (ISEA 2024)

Head injuries contribute up to 30.5% of all injury-related deaths in the US, representing a potential health issue worldwide. About this, rotational head kinematics were identified as critical to brain damage and specific criteria were developed based on this fact. Therefore, newer test methods and simulations focalized in the rotational component of impacts. Numerical models could provide tissue-level information of simulated impacts, while experimental tests provide quicker results and easier setup. Standardized tests such as ECE.22 make use of metal head forms equipped with a skull accelerometer and gyro. The main limitation is the lack of soft tissues modeling and the possibility to measure only skull kinematics. Instead, more advanced surrogates made for research purposes model soft tissues and could benefit for the measure of brain kinematics and/or pressure waves. Such head surrogates could be an useful experimental tool to validate numerical predictions and to integrate the limited information provided by standard head forms. The aim of the work is to present the advances in the development a bio fidelic replica of the human head, equipped with several and advanced sensors to measure kinematics, pressure waves, and brain stress. The surrogate was then used to perform standardized tests with helmets, and to evaluate the effect of anti-rotational technologies on injury criteria.