How Well Do Popular Bicycle Helmets Protect from Different Types of Head Injury?

Claire Baker, Xu Yu, Brian C. Lovell, Ruth Tan, Srujal Patel, Mazdak Ghajari

Annals of Biomedical Engineering, 2024

Abstract

Bicycle helmets are designed to protect against skull fractures and associated focal brain injuries, driven by helmet standards. Another type of head injury seen in injured cyclists is diffuse brain injuries, but little is known about the protection provided by bicycle helmets against these injuries. Here, we examine the performance of modern bicycle helmets in preventing diffuse injuries and skull fractures under impact conditions that represent a range of real-world incidents. We also investigate the effects of helmet technology, price, and mass on protection against these pathologies. 30 most popular helmets among UK cyclists were purchased within 9.99–135.00 GBP price range. Helmets were tested under oblique impacts onto a 45° anvil at 6.5 m/s impact speed and four locations, front, rear, side, and front-side. A new headform, which better represents the average human head’s mass, moments of inertia and coefficient of friction than any other available headforms, was used. We determined peak linear acceleration (PLA), peak rotational acceleration (PRA), peak rotational velocity (PRV), and BrIC. We also determined the risk of skull fractures based on PLA (linear risk), risk of…

Cite as (BibTeX)

@article{baker-2024-how-well-do-popular,
  title={How Well Do Popular Bicycle Helmets Protect from Different Types of Head Injury?},
  author={Claire Baker and Xu Yu and Brian C. Lovell and Ruth Tan and Srujal Patel and Mazdak Ghajari},
  journal={Annals of Biomedical Engineering},
  year={2024},
  doi={10.1007/s10439-024-03589-8}
}