Rachel Jia Ying Tan, Xiancheng Yu, Mazdak Ghajari
Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 2026
Helmets · Past project
Industrial helmet testing
Testing hardhats against real workplace head-impact conditions, not just falling-object certification.
Current industrial helmet standards test protection against falling objects, but trips and falls are the dominant cause of TBI in industrial workplaces. We modelled over 1,600 trips and falls to determine realistic head-impact conditions, then designed a new test protocol that distinguishes helmet performance under those conditions.
Industrial helmets (hardhats) are tested for protection against falling objects, according to current standards. However, these standards don’t reflect how the majority of workplace head injuries actually occur. Trips and falls dominate.
We performed computational modelling of 1,692 trips, forward falls, and backward falls to determine representative head-impact location, speed, and angle for defining better lab test conditions. We then tested a range of industrial helmets under those conditions.
We determined impact speed, angle and location for new test methods. Our impact tests showed the inability of current helmet designs in preventing different types of head injuries, including skull fracture and associated focal brain injuries. These test conditions can be adopted in helmet standards as well as helmet rating systems, such as HIPER.
Videos
Related publications
Papers connected to this work.
Xiancheng Yu, Claire Baker, Mazdak Ghajari
Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 2023