Citation

Hsu YL, Tai CY, Chen TC. Int. J. Ind. Ergonomics 2000; 26(1): 109-117.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper presents the redesign of an industrial safety helmet shell to improve its thermal properties. First an experiment was established to simulate the conditions of a head wearing a helmet. The average temperature beneath the helmet shell, the speed of heat dissipation through convection, and the temperature contour beneath the helmet shell were used to describe the thermal properties of a helmet. Helmets of different types and makes were tested, and various design concepts were examined. Design suggestions for improving thermal properties of industrial safety helmets were made. According to these design suggestions, a new design prototype was developed, tested, and further modified. The thermal properties of our final helmet shell design have improved over the commercially available helmets we tested. It also passed the weight, impact, and penetration tests of the Chinese National Standards. Finally a subjective human evaluation showed that the new helmet design has significantly better thermal properties than existing commercial helmets.Relevance to industryIndustrial safety helmets provide head protection for industrial workers. Thermal discomfort is one of the major reasons that industrial workers do not like to wear safety helmets. This paper presents and verifies ways on improving thermal properties of industrial safety helmets.