Development of a Helmet Test Rig for Continuously Textile Reinforced Riot Helmets

This paper is a part of research carried out for the manufacturing and evaluation of riot police helmet having continuous textile reinforcement. Successful technique was developed for the manufacturing on single-piece continuously textile reinforced riot helmet shells. In order to fulfil the objective of in-house impact testing on the developed continuously textile reinforced helmets,a helmet test rig was made. The University of Manchester’s drop weight impact testing instrument was used and successfully modified for helmet testing.The importance of the developed test rig was the sufficient abilities to carry out impact testing at different impact position at the helmet shell, force blocking effectiveness at different locations can be calculated and the behaviour of the transmitted force at different impact locations can be understood. Furthermore, energy absorption at different impact location can also be studied.