Development of an improved dummy head for use in helmet certification tests

First order improvements to the rigid headform, used in current helmet certification tests, are made by introducing a skull and brain structure. In developing the new headform certain requirements were taken into consideration. The new headform appears to meet all requirements but one. The 200 mm drop test with Hybrid-III skin padding on the anvil resulted in too low resultant linear head accelerations. Using a stiffer, more realistic padding on the anvil resulted in a resultant linear head acceleration which satisfies the requirements (100 - 150 g).The padding plays an important role in the evaluation process. Because of the deformable skull, a fairly stiff padding has to be used in order to let the resultant linear head acceleration satisfy the requirements. In contrast to the 200 mm drop test experiments, the padding properties of th! e skin are of no importance when an EPS padding is placed between the skin and the anvil.