New Combat Helmets
Reported July 2005
ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Helmets used during combat have been protecting soldiers' heads for decades but very little has changed over the years. Engineers are giving helmets an overhaul and improving the safety of soldiers in the line of duty.
Dodging bullets and bombs is something our fighting men and women come face to face with every day. Sergeant First Class Ralph Brewer of the United States Army knows a helmet is a soldier's best protection but wearing one takes some getting use to.
Brewer says, "With most soldiers, they don't like the helmet because it is heavy, because it does get in the way." Those aren't soldiers' only complaints. Helmets can also make it hard to hear which direction gunfire is coming from.
Now engineers have created a new helmet. Angélique Scharine, Ph.D., a research psychologist in the Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. Says the new helmet doesn't cover the ear as much." It has a kind of soft padding on the inside, so you were better able to tell where sounds are coming from," she says.
In older helmets, sounds bounce around inside the hard surface of the helmet. Acoustical engineers designed a new helmet, called the advanced combat helmet, to handle different ranges of sound.
Scharine explains, "For any sound, not just a gunfire or a bomb going off, it could be something like footsteps behind you, in the woods, you hear something you can turn around and see that somebody is coming up on you."
The new helmet sits away from the ear. When a sound enters the helmet, soft pads inside the helmet absorb the sound. This allows more sounds to enter the ear in a direct path, so soldiers can better tell where a sound is coming from, faster. Soldiers know a better helmet could be the key to keeping him or her safe and sound.
Soldiers in Iraq are currently using the advanced combat helmet.
Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:
The Acoustical Society of America
2 Huntington Quadrangle
Melville, NY 11747-4502
(516) 576-2360
asa@aip.org
http://asa.aip.org/
Click here to watch the video.
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