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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."
Green military uniforms have also been observed to be a cause of brain damage, proportional to the number of stars on the uniform.
Ezekiel 23:20
Helmets which "have helped modern soldiers survive bullets and blasts that would have killed them in past wars" are being accused of causing brain damage.
I guess boxing gloves cause brain damage, too? Or maybe it's boxing that causes brain damage, and the gloves reduce the risk...
Now, if they can make better helmets that reduce the risk of brain damage even further, props to them. That doesn't mean the current generation of helmets are "causing" brain damage.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
You have been warned.
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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IED = improvised explosive device. As opposed to an explosive device made on a production line somewhere. The military loves acronyms even more than the rest of government, so I doubt there's any Orwellian reason for the name.
Certainly it's possible, they just need better shock absorption. The current design transmits too much of the shock to the skull.
This problem is actually caused by the helmet's method of not transmitting shock to the skull. FTA:
So the trick is keeping the overpressure out of the helmet, while keeping it separated from the skull. Perhaps a dual helmet design; Rigid outer shell to absorb and deflect impact, and a second separate inner covering to resist overpressure. Either that, or in place of ACH pads, some type of system relying on fluid dynamics to redirects force forward, out the face of the helmet, rather than inward toward the skull.
Actually, while there is plenty of military doublespeak that could be dispensed with, "IED" I am perfectly happy with. "Improvised" is a worthwhile adjective to use in this context, because the improvised devices do typically have different characteristics from the closest equivalent professionally made devices, so you want to use that or some other adjective (you could use "home made" if you like, but that sounds like you're talking about pie, not weaponry). And since the term covers a range of blast, shrapnel, and incendiary devices, "explosive device" pretty much covers it. For once, it's actually a concise and descriptive acronym.
Oh no... it's the future.
Actually, there's some very good reasons for calling them IEDs. IED stands for Improvised Explosive Device, of course. What this means is that the explosive device in question is not standard. This matters when it comes to disarming/making them safe.
If a EOD guy comes across an unexploded MK82, he knows precisely how to disarm it - it's standardized. Same deal with most land mines*, claymore devices, unmodified artillery shells**, and the rest of the world's standard military munitions. We even have books on foreign country's stuff, including Russian and old USSR weapons.
Each IED, even if from the same maker, is far more unique, presenting unique challanges when it comes to disarming them.
Oh, and being designated as a land mine doesn't mean a 'large enough' payload, it means it's buried in the ground with an appropriate sensor/detonator to explode when something's over it. Most are pressure sensitive, some anti-vehicle types have magnetic detonators.
Bombs are generally assumed to be dropped out of planes, but then I'm Air Force.
*Though booby-trapping can be an issue with these.
**Many are converted into IEDs via non-conventional detonation systems in Iraq/Afghanistan.
I don't read AC A human right
I'll bet there's an army manual somewhere which says so. Probably if the artillery shells are used as artillery shells, they're not considered IEDs, but if they're rigged as a claymore, they are. Sort of like if you somehow hooked a billiard ball to your mouse to make a trackball, you'd have an IPD -- improvised pointing device.
They also make it possible to hit the head. Without gloves you'd break your hands if you stood there punching at somebody's head. In the old days of bare-knuckle boxing most of the blows were to the body. There were a lot of bruised ribs but hardly anybody died.
No sig today...
I think a lot of this stems from the way the current helmet is fitted to the soldiers head. (Yes, I am a soldier, 18th Airborne Corp, Ft Bragg, NC)
1 - The older Kevlar helmet was fitted to your head with a "sweat band" strapped to the inside of the helmet, which could be adjusted to fit your head exactly.
2 - The newer ACH (Advanced Combat Helmet) is fitted with velcro backed pads which attach inside the helmet.
Let me say now that it is *very* common for CIF (where you get issued your equipment) to be out of your size and give you the next size up. With the older Kevlar (case 1 above) you could still fit the sweat band to fit your head, securing the helmet. With the ACH (case 2 above) if the helmet is too big, the pads will be loose on your head, and the helmet will rattle around on your head when concussions occur nearby.
My read was exactly the same. The helmets are now so much better at protecting heads than anything ever has been in the past, that we're having to model air pressure caused skull flex in order to find something to make better. That's fantastic! Not too long ago the trauma was more likely to be a piece of a bomb going through the brain that caused the damage.
And yeah -- anything they can do to make them better is a good thing, but lets applaud how far they've come.
The only thing I'd add, is that if we could find a way to have less soldiers in the way of bombs and bullets, we could be less aggressive on helmet designs too. Ah well.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln