Standardization News

ASTM International’s sports equipment, playing surfaces, and facilities committee (F08) is working on a standard, WK81691, for testing helmet performance during rotational loading.

Helmet standards testing involves dropping a helmeted headform onto a perpendicular surface and measuring the resulting linear forces. The new standard will subject helmeted headforms to angled impacts (common in sports like cycling, snow sports, equestrian, etc.) and measure the resulting rotational forces, as well to more comprehensively address brain injury. Whereas previously a dummy neck has typically not been included in such testing, this new standard proposes the use of a high-fidelity head and neck apparatus, in an effort to more closely simulate real-life conditions.

ASTM International members and WK81691 co-chairs Peter Cripton and Megan Bland-Rothgeb emphasize that the neck may play a crucial role in testing impact mitigation of various helmets.

“More and more helmets include mechanisms or elements to mitigate rotational accelerations and rotational forces,” says Cripton. “We feel it is a limitation to exclude the neck in helmet rotational testing, because the neck muscles may be pre-braced in many head impacts sustained in sports and transportation contexts. Thus, the neck may play a significant role in head impact. So this standard may be better able to identify safety parameters for real-world crashes, preventing serious injuries."

This effort relates to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #13 on climate action, by supporting bicycle safety.