Improved protection and performance through advanced helmet design

头盔是保护头部免受撞击的重要设备。在军事背景下，撞击可能包括爆炸、弹道或头部钝力。也许并不奇怪，头盔的研究和设计一直专注于不断提高头盔的冲击保护。改进的冲击保护措施确保我们的军事人员能够安全返回家园。然而，最近头盔也已经成为用于安装通信和性能增强设备的有用平台。与此同时，慢性颈部疼痛已成为我们军事人员的一个重要问题，特别是直升机机组人员，直接影响他们的作战准备和服役后的生活质量。虽然没有单一的原因是唯一负责，头盔作为其他设备的安装平台的使用越来越多，是一个主要的问题。这项研究的重点是了解更多关于如何增加头部的质量（即，在头盔上增加通信装置或夜视镜）会影响头颈功能和组织水平的暴露。我们将应用这些经验，与冲击模拟相结合，重新思考头盔设计。通过这种方法，我们将实现头盔设计选项，继续提供必要的冲击保护，以防止急性冲击相关的伤害，但也考虑到头盔的作用，作为一个安装平台。重要的是，我们的新头盔设计还将改善对长期慢性颈部疼痛的保护，如果不加以检查，这一日益严重的问题将继续降低我们退伍军人的生活质量。

The helmet is an essential piece of equipment to protect the head from impact. In a military context, impacts may include blast, ballistic, or blunt force to the head. Perhaps not surprisingly, helmet research and design has focused on continuously improving the impact protection of the helmet. Improvements in impact protection ensure that our military personnel can return home safely. However, recently the helmet has also become a useful platform for mounting communications and performance enhancement devices. At the same time, chronic neck pain has emerged as a significant problem for our military personnel, particularly helicopter aircrew, directly affecting their operational readiness and quality of life post-military duty. While no single cause is solely responsible, the increased use of the helmet as a mounting platform for other devices is a leading concern. The focus of this research is to learn more about how added mass on the head (i.e., the addition of communications devices, or night vision goggles to the helmet) influences head-neck function and tissue level exposures. We will apply these learnings, in concert with impact simulations, to re-think helmet design. Through this approach we will realize helmet design options that continue to provide essential impact protection to prevent acute impact related injuries, but that also considers the helmet's role as a mounting platform. Importantly, our new helmet design will also improve protection against long-term chronic neck pain, a growing problem that will continue to reduce the quality of life of our veterans if left un-checked.