Protective headgear compression member

Abstract

A protective headgear compression member includes a hollow compression cell having a top wall, a bowed side wall and a bottom wall and a liner element secured to that bottom wall coaxially to said cell. The liner element is composed of a flexible envelope substantially filled with resilient material and the envelope is secured to the bottom wall via an axially flexible connection to prevent the bottoming out of the liner element against the bottom wall of the cell.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]This invention relates to protective headgear and other impact absorbing structures. It relates especially to an impact absorbing compression member for use therein.[0003]2. Background Information[0004]Headgear such as a helmet is often worn by individuals during games and other physical activities to help protect the wearers from head injury. Head injury can result from impact forces due to contact with other people or objects. Currently marketed helmets generally fall into one of two categories, i.e. single impact helmets or multiple impact helmets. Single impact helmets undergo permanent deformation under impact, whereas multiple impact helmets are capable of withstanding multiple blows. The wearers of single impact helmets include, for example, bicyclists and motorcyclists. On the other hand, participants in sports such as hockey and football and construction workers generally wear multiple impact helmets. Both cate...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011]Still another object of the invention is to provide such a compression member which when incorporated into a helmet along with a multiplicity of other similar members produces headgear which is comfortable to wear for a prolonged period even when the helmet is repeatedly impacted from without.

[0015]Preferably, the bottom wall of the cell inboard the cell flange is curved upwardly, giving the cell a dished or concave undersurface to provide additional clearance for the pad(s). This construction along with the pad(s) enables the compression member to withstand appreciable compression forces without the liner element bottoming out against the underside of the cell. Resultantly, when a multiplicity of the compression members are incorporated into a protective structure such as a football helmet, the structure is comfortable to wear for a prolonged period, despite repeated impacts thereto.

Problems solved by technology

Head injury can result from impact forces due to contact with other people or objects.

Also, the compressible structures forming the dynamic inner liner of the helmet are usually simply foam pads or capsules adhered to the underside of the associated cell and are prone to bottoming out when the helmet is pressed against the wearer's head by high impact forces, thus causing discomfort to the wearer.

Simply increasing the thickness of the pads in an attempt to overcome this problem results in an undesirable increase in helmet size.

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