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Military Helmet Design Contributes To Brain Damage
BuzzSkyline writes "Improvements in helmets have helped modern soldiers survive bullets and blasts that would have killed them in past wars. But increasing numbers of soldiers are suffering long lasting brain damage from explosions, partly as a result of what appears to be a flaw in helmet designs. Although the blast itself may not accelerate the brain inside a soldier's head enough to cause injury, shockwaves that make it through the space between a helmet and a soldier's head can cause the skull to flex, leading to ripples in the skull that can create damaging pressures in the brain. Simulations that relied on 'code originally designed to simulate how a detonated weapon rattles a building or tank' could lead to new helmets that reduce the traumatic brain injuries that many soldiers suffer as a result of improvised explosive devices and other moderate-sized blasts. The research is due to be published in Physical Review Letters, but a pre-print of the entire article is currently available on the Physics ArXiv."
I tought helmets were designed to protect from debri and flying objects caused by explosions, not the shockwave from 2 pounds of C-4 lying around.
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There was just an article earlier today (Orange Goo) about a material that helps absorb shock, so why not line the inside of the helmets with the stuff?
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
The part that they perhaps should have mentioned is that in the TFA they compared the new helmets with the helmets they stopped using in 2003. They found that there is a gap in the new helmet which makes it handle bullets better than the old one, but it seems to handle explosions worse.
Basically, it's not that the helmet is causing brain damage. It's that the helmet is not protected the soldier from brain damage as well as the older helmet did.
I wonder if this may be the cause of "Gulf War Syndrome" we heard a lot about a few years back...
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I remember reading a similar article about motorcycle helmets, which said that the incident of brain trauma was higher in helmeted riders versus helmetless. Same reason - the rigid helmet transmitted shockwave straight through the skull to the brain, where the facial structure absorbed a lot of the shock in unhelmeted riders.
So the choice seemed to be pretty and brain damaged, or ugly and smart.
I think they've redesigned the helmets since then.
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It's nearly impossible to knock someone our bare handed with a blow to the temple
While perhaps this is true for the temple (and only the temple), I have seen way to many UFC fights to agree with the general idea of this statement. Catch the jaw just right with a solid blow and just about anyone will go down.
The gloves lessen the blow, but they also make it possible to sustain a fight for 10 rounds... that is where the damage occurs. Getting knocked out isn't that big of a deal, it's the repeated blows that mess you up.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
shockwaves that make it through the space between a helmet and a soldier's head
Either Jarhead isn't wearing his helmet properly or there IS a major flaw in the design. This kind of thing is mentioned everywhere.
Have you ever worn a bike helmet that was 3 sizes too large? How effective was it? Heres an experiment, place a ball on the ground and smack it with your hand. Notice how much it bounces, moves, etc etc. Now take that ball and hold it 2 feet off the ground. Now hit it, and see how much more it bounces.
If the helmet has an inch of gap, its no surprise that helmets are hitting troops with more effective damage then if they were wearing nothing at all.
Here's the hitch: Service personnel are screened rather thoroughly for any potentially disqualifying medically significant incidents prior to being enlisted/commissioned. Almost any prior head trauma for which medical attention was sought would be a disqualifying factor, unless medical review showed (with a very high degree of certainty) no lasting impairment. As a result, while a few might slip through the cracks here and there, you're not going to find a significant number of personnel entering the service with prior brain damage. You might be surprised what sort of prior medical issues can disqualify someone from military service.
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I was underweight for my height (5'10" / 115 lbs). After spending 6 months trying to gain weight, was able to get a waver and go in to basic. 4 years later, had managed to gain 12 lbs. Out on the flight line, they called me Stickman. I was able to get in through small access holes (KC-135's) and fix stuff that would have taken an extra hour of work to remove larger pieces of skin. Got a decent amount of free booze for helping speed up repairs.
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