A New Assessment of Bicycle Helmets: The Brain Injury Mitigation Effects of New Technologies in Oblique Impacts

Fady F. Abayazid, Ke Qin Ding, Karl Zimmerman, Helena Stigson, Mazdak Ghajari

Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 2021

Abstract

New helmet technologies have been developed to improve the mitigation of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in bicycle accidents. However, their effectiveness under oblique impacts, which produce more strains in the brain in comparison with vertical impacts adopted by helmet standards, is still unclear. Here we used a new method to assess the brain injury prevention effects of 27 bicycle helmets in oblique impacts, including helmets fitted with a friction-reducing layer (MIPS), a shearing pad (SPIN), a wavy cellular liner (WaveCel), an airbag helmet (Hövding) and a number of conventional helmets. We tested whether helmets fitted with the new technologies can provide better brain protection than conventional helmets. Each helmeted headform was dropped onto a 45° inclined anvil at 6.3 m/s at three locations, with each impact location producing a dominant head rotation about one anatomical axes of the head. A detailed computational model of TBI was used to determine strain distribution across the brain and in key anatomical regions, the corpus callosum and sulci. Our results show that, in comparison with conventional helmets, the majority of helmets incorporating new technologies…

Cite as (BibTeX)

@article{abayazid-2021-a-new-assessment-of,
  title={A New Assessment of Bicycle Helmets: The Brain Injury Mitigation Effects of New Technologies in Oblique Impacts},
  author={Fady F. Abayazid and Ke Qin Ding and Karl Zimmerman and Helena Stigson and Mazdak Ghajari},
  journal={Annals of Biomedical Engineering},
  year={2021},
  doi={10.1007/s10439-021-02785-0}
}