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Efficacy Of Hard Hats In Attenuating Head Accelerations: A Combined Experimental And Computational Investigation, Arthur Aloisio Alves Dos Santos

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Struck-by accidents are a leading cause of traumatic brain injuries in the construction industry. While hard hats are the conventional means of industrial head protection, the current test standard to evaluate hard hat performance does not assess their ability to mitigate head accelerations from such impacts. To address this gap in knowledge, three investigations were pursued as part of this thesis. First, a variety of commercially available hard-hat designs – differentiated by shell design, number of suspension points, and suspension tightening system – were tested for their ability to attenuate accelerations during vertical impacts to the head. All hard-hats appreciably …