An Ergonomic Study of a Conventional Ballistic Helmet

Abstract

Ballistic helmet is a standard infantry equipment that provides ballistic protection from fragmenting to the head, temples, ear and neck of the wearer. This paper presents the study of the design of a locally used ballistic helmet, i.e. Personnel Armor System for Ground Troop (PASGT) type helmet, from ergonomic perspectives and the identification of potential risk areas of injury based on the current ballistic helmet design. Two quantitative assessment techniques are employed in the investigation. First, a set of questionnaires were distributed to the current users of the PASGT helmet. The result showed that the 54.8% of respondents experienced pain on the parietal (top) area of their head, which is a potential risk area of head injury. Second, an experiment with 10-mm thick sponge layer added to the interior part of the helmet was conducted to test its effect on the contact pressure between the head of the wearer and the medium size PASGT helmet while jogging on a treadmill at 8km/h for 180seconds. Mean of peak contact pressure with and without wearing the sponge of 2.5kPa and 2.6kPa, respectively, are obtained from the practical test. The maximum of peak contact pressure is found to be 3.6kPa with the sponge and 4.2kPa without the sponge. The results obtained in this study indicate that there are areas of discomfort interior to the PASGT helmet in contact with the wearer and that the discomfort can be minimized by appending a sponge layer to the frontal of the helmet.