A little padding goes a long way. That's what researchers found when trying to find out how helmets can provide better protection from blunt force contact.
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, one of the government's top research facilities, said by adding just a quarter-inch, or even an eighth of an inch, of padding, helmets had a 24 percent reduction in force to the skull.
"When you look at the accelerations that can cause injury, just a small increase in thickness can knock that acceleration down to a point where it'll make very severe injuries potentially a little less severe, and very light injuries maybe not happening at all," explained Michael King, the study co-author and a Lawrence Livermore mechanical engineer.
The yearlong study, funded by the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, used computational simulations of impacts on the head and helmet. To get accurate data, it turned to professional football, where concussions are also a big concern, and tested the thicker foam systems used by NFL players against the spongier pads used in combat helmets to see which worked best.
It concluded that the Army's helmet padding worked just as well as the padding in NFL, but that there just needed to be a little more of it.
Brain injuries are a major concern in the battlefield, as when an I.E.D. goes off and a soldier in a Humvee gets knocked around, or a large chunk of debris or shrapnel hits their helmets.
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Labs, one of the government's top research facilities, said by adding just a quarter-inch, or even an eighth of an inch, of padding, helmets had a 24 percent reduction in force to the skull.
"When you look at the accelerations that can cause injury, just a small increase in thickness can knock that acceleration down to a point where it'll make very severe injuries potentially a little less severe, and very light injuries maybe not happening at all," explained Michael King, the study co-author and a Lawrence Livermore mechanical engineer.
The yearlong study, funded by the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, used computational simulations of impacts on the head and helmet. To get accurate data, it turned to professional football, where concussions are also a big concern, and tested the thicker foam systems used by NFL players against the spongier pads used in combat helmets to see which worked best.It concluded that the Army's helmet padding worked just as well as the padding in NFL, but that there just needed to be a little more of it.
Brain injuries are a major concern in the battlefield, as when an I.E.D. goes off and a soldier in a Humvee gets knocked around, or a large chunk of debris or shrapnel hits their helmets.
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