Head injury is the most frequent cause of death in road accidents. There are several ways of preventing or reducing the severity of head injury among those who ride in vehicles or on two-wheeled machines; these include the provision of padding and the wearing of protective head gear. To obtain the maximum benefit from padding and to design the most effective head gear, information is needed on the energy-absorbing properties of the head, particularly the scalp. To obtain this information impact experiments have been carried out on occipital scalp material taken from recently dead cadavers. This article describes the experiments and the results obtained. A comparison of the results with those of similar experiments on padding materials shows that the scalp may be simulated by a layer of cellular silicone rubber 5/32 in. thick. Measurements on specimens of scalp tissue 1/16 in. thick taken from one cadaver indicate that an impact energy of about 9000 in.lb. per cu.in.is sufficient to cause severe structural damage to the tissue.
Abstract