Evaluation of the Fall Protection of Type I Industrial Helmets

The performance of Type I industrial helmets for fall protection is not required to be tested in standardized tests. The current study analyzed the fall protection performance of Type I industrial helmets and evaluated if the use of a chin strap and the suspension system tightness have any effect on protection performance. Head impact tests were performed using an instrumented manikin. There were 12 combinations of test conditions: with or without chin strap usage, three levels of suspension system tightness, and two impact surfaces. Four representative helmet models (two basic and two advanced models) were selected for the study. Impact tests without a helmet under all other applicable test conditions were used as a control group. There were four replicates for each test condition—a total of 192 impact tests with helmets and eight impact tests for the control group. The peak acceleration and the calculated head impact criteria (HIC) were used to evaluate shock absorption performance of the helmets. The results showed that all four helmet models demonstrated excellent performance for fall protection compared to the barehead control group. The fall protection performance of the advanced helmet models was substantially better than the basic helmet models. However, the effects of the use of chin straps and suspension system tightness on the helmets’ fall protection performance were statistically not significant.