ArticleAnnals of biomedical engineering2026
A Novel Video-Based Method to Estimate American Football Helmet Pad Deformation During Impact Testing.
Article in Annals of biomedical engineering, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Letter to the Editor: Experimental Characterisation of the Anisotropic Behaviour of the Different Tissue Layers of Human Abdominal Wall.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeAmerican football is among the sports with the highest incidence of mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI), associated with long-term neurological consequences including cognitive impairment, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and Alzheimer's disease. Despite recent rule changes and stricter National Football League (NFL) safety guidelines, mTBI remains common, underscoring the need for improved helmet design and evaluation. Current helmet testing protocols, such as the NFL's, measure head kinematics to derive performance scores but do not characterize helmet component behavior during impact. This study proposes a novel approach through the Pad Deformation Index (PDI)-a quantitative metric estimating compressive deformation of helmet pads during impact.
methodsStandard helmet impact tests were conducted at the Side Upper location, at three velocities (5.5, 7.4, and 9.3 m/s). Complementary mechanical tests on isolated pads using a drop tower at equivalent velocities linked helmet-level outcomes with localized pad response. High-speed videos enabled frame-by-frame reconstruction of the headform-impactor interaction and calculation of the minimum distance between the two rigid bodies, from which PDI was derived.
resultsHigher PDI values generally coincided with reduced peak linear acceleration (PLA), Head Injury Criterion (HIC), DAMAGE, HARM, and partial Helmet Performance Score (HPS), supporting the use of PDI as an indicator connecting impact performance metric to pad deformation. Furthermore, pads exhibiting later densification within high-PDI range produced the lowest performance scores, underscoring the critical role of delayed densification.
conclusionPDI offers a practical tool for identifying absorption mechanisms and guiding helmet design.
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