Lot Acc Test of Armor Helmets

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Review of Department of Defense Test Protocols for Combat

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Review of Department of Defense Test Protocols for Combat Helmets
Committee on Review of Test Protocols Used by the DoD to Test Combat Helmets
Board on Army Science and Technology
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences

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COMMITTEE ON REVIEW OF TEST PROTOCOLS USED BY THE DOD

TO TEST COMBAT HELMETS
VIJAYAN N. NAIR, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Chair

CHRISTINE ANDERSON-COOK, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos,
New Mexico
CAMERON R. BASS, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
THOMAS F. BUDINGER (NAE/IOM), University of California, Berkeley
MICHAEL J. CUSHING, U.S. Army Evaluation Center (retired), Portland, Maine
ROBERT EASTERLING, Sandia National Laboratories (retired), Cedar Crest,
New Mexico
RONALD D. FRICKER, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterrey, California
PETER N. FULLER, Cypress International, Springfield, Virginia
RAUL A. RADOVITZKY, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
ERNEST SEGLIE, Office of the Secretary of Defense (retired), Kensington, Maryland
Staff
BRUCE BRAUN, Director, Board on Army Science and Technology
NANCY T. SCHULTE, Study Director
DEANNA SPARGER, Program Administrative Coordinator
NIA D. JOHNSON, Senior Research Associate

BOARD ON ARMY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
DAVID M. MADDOX, Independent Consultant, Arlington, Virginia, Chair

JEAN D. REED, Independent Consultant, Arlington, Virginia, Vice Chair
DUANE ADAMS, Independent Consultant, Arlington, Virginia
ILESANMI ADESIDA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
STEVEN W. BOUTELLE, CISCO Consulting Services, Herndon, Virginia
MARY E. BOYCE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
EDWARD C. BRADY, Strategic Perspectives, Inc., McLean, Virginia
W. PETER CHERRY, Independent Consultant, Ann Arbor, Michigan
EARL H. DOWELL, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
JULIA D. ERDLEY, Pennsylvania State University, State College
LESTER A. FOSTER, Electronic Warfare Associates, Herndon, Virginia
JAMES A. FREEBERSYSER, BBN Technology, St. Louis Park, Minnesota
PETER N. FULLER, Cypress International, Springfield, Virginia
W. HARVEY GRAY, Independent Consultant, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
JOHN J. HAMMOND, Independent Consultant, Fairfax, Virginia
RANDALL W. HILL, JR., University of Southern California Institute for Creative
Technologies, Playa Vista
JOHN W. HUTCHINSON, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
BRUCE D. JETTE, Synovision Solutions, LLC, Burke, Virginia
ROBIN L. KEESEE, Independent Consultant, Fairfax, Virginia
WILLIAM L. MELVIN, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Smyrna
WALTER F. MORRISON, Independent Consultant, Alexandria, Virginia
ROBIN MURPHY, Texas A&M University, College Station
SCOTT PARAZYNSKI, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
RICHARD R. PAUL, Independent Consultant, Bellevue, Washington
DANIEL PODOLSKY, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
LEON E. SALOMON, Independent Consultant, Gulfport, Florida
ALBERT A. SCIARRETTA, CNS Technologies, Inc., Springfield, Virginia
JONATHAN M. SMITH, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
DAVID A. TIRRELL, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
MICHAEL A. VANE, DynCorp International, Lorton, Virginia
JOSEPH YAKOVAC, JVM LLC, Hampton, Virginia
Staff
BRUCE A. BRAUN, Director
CHRIS JONES, Financial Manager
DEANNA P. SPARGER, Program Administrative Coordinator
vi

Preface
Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) wrote to Secretary of The study was conducted under the auspices of the NRC
Defense Leon Panetta in June 2012 to express her concerns Board on Army Science and Technology (BAST). The com-
that the new protocol for testing Advanced Combat Helmets mittee appreciates the assistance of Bruce A. Braun, director
(ACHs) posed “an unacceptably high risk” for such protec- of BAST, and Nancy T. Schulte, study director, for their very
tive equipment. In responding to Rep. Slaughter, Dr. Michael effective support in the conduct of this study. It also offers
Gilmore, Director of Operational Test and Evaluation its thanks to the BAST staff members who capably assisted
(DOT&E) of the Department of Defense (DoD), indicated in information-gathering activities, meeting and trip arrange-
that he had requested the National Academies’ National ments, and the production of this report; they include Nia D.
Research Council (NRC) to conduct an independent review Johnson, associate research assistant, and Deanna Sparger,
of DOT&E’s test protocols. The Committee on Review of senior program assistant.
Test Protocols Used by the DoD to Test Combat Helmets Finally, and most importantly, I want to express my appre-
was formed to conduct this review. This report is the result ciation to my fellow committee members for all of their work
of that study. in developing the findings and recommendations and in pre-
The committee held six meetings, including a site visit paring the report. This was an especially collegial group of
to the combat helmet test range at the Aberdeen Test Center experts, and I learned a lot from interacting with them. Rob
in Maryland. It received presentations from some two dozen Easterling and Ernest Seglie, two of the committee members,
entities, including offices within the U.S. Army, the U.S. deserve special mention for their contributions as part of the
Marine Corps, and the Special Operations Forces; the Insti- editorial team. I am also grateful to Naveen Narisetty at the
tute for Defense Analysis; DOT&E; manufacturers of com- University of Michigan for his work on the numerical studies
bat helmets; and the Office of the DoD Inspector General. to examine the robustness properties of test plans.
The committee appreciates the assistance offered by Chris
Moosmann, a staff member in the DOT&E Office of Live Vijay Nair, Chair
Fire Test and Evaluation, in the course of its deliberations. Committee on Review of Test Protocols
Used by the DoD to Test Combat Helmets
vii


Acknowledgments
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals James R. Moran, The Boeing Company,
chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, John E. Rolph, University of Southern California, and
in accordance with procedures approved by the National Dean L. Sicking, The University of Alabama at
Research Council’s (NRC’s) Report Review Committee. The Birmingham.
purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and
critical comments that will assist the institution in making its Although the reviewers listed above have provided many
published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked
report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, to endorse the conclusions or recommendations nor did they
and responsiveness to the study charge. The review com- see the final draft of the report before its release. The review
ments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect of this report was overseen by James O. Berger, NAS, Duke
the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the University. Appointed by the National Research Council,
following individuals for their review of this report: he was responsible for making certain that an independent
examination of this report was carried out in accordance with
Gordon R. England, NAE, E6 Partners LLC, institutional procedures and that all review comments were
Karen Kafadar, Indiana University, carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of
Harvey S. Levin, Baylor College of Medicine, this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and
William Q. Meeker, Jr., Iowa State University, the institution.
ix


Contents
SUMMARY 1
1 INTRODUCTION 8
1.0 Information Gathering, 8
1.1 Summary of the Report, 8
1.2 References, 10
2 EVOLUTION OF COMBAT HELMETS 11

2.0 Summary, 11
2.1 Introduction, 11
2.2 New Materials and Designs, 11
2.3 Recent Developments and Directions, 13
2.4 References, 14
3 THREATS, HEAD INJURIES, AND TEST METHODOLOGIES 15

3.0 Summary, 15
3.2 Historical Patterns of Treatable Injuries, 15
3.3 Threats, 17
3.4 Advanced Combat Helmet Test Methodology and Links to Biomechanics, 20
3.5 References, 23
4 COMBAT HELMET TESTING 25

4.0 Summary, 25
4.2 Ballistic Testing Methodology, 25
4.3 Sources of Test Variation, 27
4.4 Additional Measurement and Testing Issues, 29
4.5 References, 30
5 HELMET PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND TRENDS IN TEST DATA 32

5.0 Summary, 32
5.2 Performance Measures, 32
5.3 Summary of Results from Available Test Data, 34
5.4 Implications for First Article Testing Protocols, 37
5.5 References, 38

xi

xii CONTENTS
6 FIRST ARTICLE TESTING PROTOCOLS FOR RESISTANCE TO PENETRATION: STATISTICAL 39

CONSIDERATIONS AND EVALUATION OF DOD TEST PLANS
6.0 Summary, 39
6.2 Statistical Considerations in Designing Test Plans for Resistance to Penetration, 39
6.3 Statistical Evaluation of DoD Protocols for Resistance to Penetration, 42
6.4 Examination of Separate Test Plans by Helmet Size, 45
6.5 Post-Test Analysis, 46
6.6 Future Test Protocols: Helmet as the Unit of Test, 46
6.7 References, 47
7 TEST PROTOCOLS FOR BACKFACE DEFORMATION: STATISTICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND 48

ASSESSMENT
7.0 Summary, 48
7.2 Backface Deformation First Article Acceptance Testing Protocols and Their Properties, 48
7.3 Discussion, 51
8 LOT ACCEPTANCE TESTING 54

8.0 Summary, 54
8.2 Lot Acceptance Testing Protocols, 54
8.3 Evaluating Performance: Comparison of Operating Characteristic Curves, 56
8.4 ANSI Standard and the Acceptance Quality Limit, 58
8.5 Using the Helmet as the Unit of Testing, 60
8.6 References, 63
9 CHARACTERIZATION TESTS FOR THE ADVANCED COMBAT HELMET AND FUTURE HELMETS 64
9.0 Summary, 64
9.2 Characterization of the Advanced Combat Helmet Using Existing Test Data, 65
9.3 Expanded Characterization Requiring Additional Data, 65
9.4 V50 Testing, 67
9.5 Comparison with Industrial Practices, 68
9.6 Concluding Remarks, 69
9.7 References, 69
10 LINKING HELMET PROTECTION TO BRAIN INJURY 70

10.0 Summary, 70
10.2 Brain Injuries, 70
10.3 Head and Brain Injury Tolerances, 73
10.4 Brain Tissue Injury: Experimental Results, 74
10.5 Computational Modeling and Simulation, 81
10.6 Mechanical and Constitutive Properties of Tissues, 84
10.7 Conclusion, 85
10.8 References, 86
APPENDIXES
A Study Origination Documents 91

B Protocols for First Article and Lot Acceptance Testing 97
C Committee Meetings and Data-Gathering Activities 122
D Test Range Description and the Ballistic Testing Process 124
E Synopsis of Brain Injury Detection Methods 132
F Biographical Sketches of Committee Members 138

Tables, Figures, and Box
TABLES
3-1 Broad Categories of Threats, 16
3-2 Relative Body Surface Area and Distribution of Wounds by Body Region, 17
3-3 Distribution of Wounds by Body Region in Operation Enduring Force (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom
(Iraq), 17
3-4 Percentage of Injuries from Gunshot Wounds and Explosions from Previous U.S. Wars, 17
3-5 Distributions of Injury Causes by Body Region, 17
3-6 Representative Standard-Issue Infantry Rifles and Ammunition for Selected Potential Adversaries, 18
3-7 Representative Battlefield Threats/Impact Velocities, 19
4-1 DOT&E First Article Testing Helmet Test Matrix for the Advanced Combat Helmet, 26
5-1 Summary of Resistance to Penetration Test Data, 34
8-1 Sample Sizes for the Army’s Historical Lot Acceptance Testing Protocol for a 9-mm RTP Shell, 54
8-2 Helmet Lot Acceptance Testing Matrix, 55
8-3 Helmet Shot Order Test Matrix for Aramid 9-mm, 55
8-4 Subtest Acceptance Quality Limits (Approximate), 59
8-5 Sample Sizes per ANSI Standard ASQ Z1.4-2008 to Achieve an AQL of 0.4 Percent, 60
8-6 Lot Acceptance Testing Helmet Sampling Rate as Specified in the Lightweight Advanced Combat Helmet Purchase
Description, 61
8-7 Switching Rules for Lot Sizes of 1,200 to 3,200 with Acceptance Quality Limit of 0.4, 62
10-1 Categories of Brain Injuries, 71

10-2 Brain Injury Criteria and Median Values for Concussion for Low-Rate Blunt Impact, 76
FIGURES
S-1 Operating characteristic curves for the Army’s and the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation’s first article test-
ing protocols for penetration, 2
S-2 Further comparisons of the operating characteristic curves for the Army’s and the Director of Operational Test and
Evaluation’s first article testing protocols for penetration, 3
2-1 Evolution of helmets from World War I to present, 12

2-2 Helmet multi-pad and four-point retention systems, 13
xiii

xiv TABLES, FIGURES, AND BOX
3-1 Typical timeline of blast, ballistic, blunt injuries compared to ergonomics-related injuries, 16
3-2 (a) Traumatic brain injury (TBI) hospitalizations by source for battle injuries categorized by regions in Operation
Enduring Force/Operation Iraqi Freedom. (b) TBI hospitalizations by combat/noncombat source, 18
3-3 Sagittal headform specified in National Institute of Justice Penetration Standard, 20
3-4 Long linear and depressed skull fractures from nonpenetrating helmet BFD in a human cadaveric model, 21
3-5 Typical potential neck injury locations in adults from impact loading, 22
3-6 Typical blunt brain trauma diagram, 22
3-7 Energy limits for blunt impact injury assessment in AGARD AR-330, 22
4-1 Clay time and temperature effects in the column drop test, 29
4-2 Aberdeen Test Center headform, 30
4-3 New Army “sized” headforms, 31
4-4 Peepsite headforms: five headforms, one for each shot direction, 31
5-1 Illustrative backface deformation (BFD) laser scan, 33

5-2 Backface deformation (BFD) measurements by location for Data Set 1, 35
5-3 Average backface deformation (BFD) as a function of stand-off for Data Set 1, 35
5-6 Backface deformation (BFD) measurements by location and helmet size for Data Set 3, 36
6-1 Operating characteristic (OC) curve for (c = 1, n = 40) test plan, 40

6-2 Operating characteristic curves comparing 1-out-of-40 test plan with 0-out-of-40 and 1-out-of-70 test plans, 40
6-3 Operating characteristic curves of (c = 1, n = 77) plan with the desired risks, 41
6-4 Operating characteristic curve for the legacy (0, 20) test plan, 42
6-5 Comparison of the operating characteristic curves for (0, 20) and (17, 240) plans, 43
6-6 Comparison of the operating characteristic curves for (0, 20) and (5, 96) plans, 44
6-7 Operating characteristic curves for the hybrid plan and comparison to others, 45
6-8 Operating characteristic curves for three plans with n = 60, 45
6-9 Comparison of helmet-level and shot-level test protocols, 46
7-1 Operating characteristic curves for Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, backface deformation
(BFD) protocol for the two groups of shot locations, 50
7-2 The two operating characteristic (OC) curves in Figure 7-1 overlaid with the overall OC curve of the backface
deformation (BFD) protocol, 50
7-3 Comparison of the three operating characteristic curves in Figure 7-2 with that of the legacy (0, 20) plan, 50
7-4 Operating characteristic curves for the two location groups for the Enhanced Combat Helmet, 51
7-5 Operating characteristic curves for a single 48-shot plan and for five 48-shot plans, 51
8-1 Operating characteristic curves for resistance to penetration for the three Director, Operational Test and
Evaluation, protocols by lot sizes, 56
8-2 Comparison of operating characteristic curves for the three Director, Operational Test and
Evaluation (DOT&E) lot acceptance testing protocols (black, red, and green) with the Army’s
Legacy first article testing (FAT) protocol (blue) and DOT&E’s FAT protocol (orange), 57
8-3 Comparison of operating characteristic curves for the three DOT&E lot acceptance testing protocols
(black, red, and green) with an illustrative (1, 60) first article testing protocol (red), 57
8-4 Backface deformation (BFD) operating characteristic curves for the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation
(DOT&E) first article testing (FAT) protocol in blue, the original Army FAT protocol in black, and the
DOT&E lot acceptance testing (LAT) protocols in red, 58
8-5 Operating characteristic (OC) curves for the illustrative helmet-based lot acceptance testing (LAT) protocol
in red compared to the OC curve for the combined resistance to penetration and backface deformation for the
Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) LAT protocol in blue, 61
8-6 Switching rules from ANSI/ASQ Z1.4-2008, 62

TABLES, FIGURES, AND BOX xv
10-1 Linkages between the force of the impact, how the helmet attenuates it, and resulting brain injuries, 71
10-2 Incidence of traumatic brain injury classified by severity for warfighters, 73
10-3 (a) The University of Virginia’s Hybrid III head model used for laboratory simulations and measurements.
(b) Biokinetics headform variant of the Hybrid III headform for ballistic impact, 75
10-4 Instrumented cadaver head, 77
10-5 Thresholds for diffuse axonal injury based on nonhuman primate rotational acceleration experiments
and scaling through computational modeling to human brain masses of 500 g (thick solid curve),
1,067 g (solid curve), and 1,400 g (dotted curve). Regions to the upper and right of each curve are
regions of diffuse axonal injury, 78
10-6 Left: The base of the human skull supports the bottom of the brain and the brain stem that descends
through the large orifice in the center known as the foramen magnum. Right: Positron tomography of
the uptake of ammonia-13N in the normal pituitary, 80
10-7 Principal strains in simulated brain material from projectile-induced kinetic energy striking a helmet at two angles.
Blue is 0 percent, green is 2 percent, and red is >4 percent, 82
10-8 Computational simulations of the protective effect of the Advanced Combat Helmet (center column) and
face shield (right column) show a significant attenuation of the transmitted pressure field when compared to the
unprotected head (left column), 83
10-9 Experimental determination of brain shear modulus (magnitude of the complex shear modulus) showing wide
variance of experimental results from different researchers, 84
10-10 Dependence of shear strain on stress rate shows the importance of correct simulation of the shear stress rate in
simulations, 84
D-1a The helmet test range at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center, 124
D-1b Typical test range at set-up for helmet V0 testing, 125
D-2 U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center headform, 125
D-3 Packing the headform with clay and shaping the clay, 125
D-4 U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center headform with clay, 126
D-5 Test impact locations, 126
D-6 Pad Configuration for V0 resistance to penetration testing for full cut style helmet (top) or the tactical
cut style helmet (bottom), 126
D-7 Helmet mounted on a headform, 127
D-8 Test frame and fixture, 127
D-9 Example of headform showing a penetration as evidenced by the presence of projectile fragments in the clay, 128
D-10 Witness plate headforms for hardware testing, 128
D-11 V50 helmet test mount (left) and associated witness plate (right), 129
D-12 Headform showing indent in the clay as a result of helmet backface deformation, 129
D-13 Faro® scanning laser instrument laser scan arm, 129
D-14 Headform clay conditioning by analogy, 130
D-15 Clay calibration test rig, 130
D-16 Examples of helmet conditioning, 131
E-1 Brain alterations shown on functional imaging without behavioral changes, 134
E-2 Positron tomography image showing sites of inflammation using the tracer 11C-PK11195 with superposition of the
positron emission tomography emission on a magnetic resonance imaging anatomical image, 135
BOX
10-1 Glossary, 72


Acronyms and Abbreviations
ACH advanced combat helmet (Army) M medium

ANSI American National Standards Institute M&S modeling and simulation
AQL acceptance quality limit MICH Modular Integrated Communications
ATC U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center Helmet
ATD anthropometric test device MIL-STD military standard
MRI magnetic resonance imaging
BFD backface deformation mTBI mild traumatic brain injury
BTD ballistic transient deformation
NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety
DAI diffuse axonal injury Administration
DCMA Defense Contract Management Agency NIJ National Institute of Justice
DoD Department of Defense NIST National Institute of Standards and
DOT Department of Transportation Technology
DOT&E Director, Operational Test and Evaluation NRC National Research Council
DTI diffusion tensor imaging
OC operating characteristic (curve)
ECH enhanced combat helmet OEF Operation Enduring Freedom
(Afghanistan)
FAST Future Assault Shell Technology OIF Operation Iraqi Freedom
FAT first article testing
FMJ full metal jacket P probability
FSP fragment simulating projectile PASGT Personnel Armor System for Ground
Troops
GSW gunshot wounds PEO-S U.S. Army Program Executive Office
Soldier
HEaDS-UP Helmet Electronics and Display System – PET positron emission tomography
Upgradeable Protection P(nP) probability of no penetration
HIC head injury criteria Pr(pen) probability of penetration
ICP intracranial pressure R&R repeatability and reproducibility

IED improvised explosive device RCC right circular cylinder
IG Inspector General RTP resistance to penetration
ISO International Standards Organization
S small
L large SIMon simulated injury monitor
LAT lot acceptance testing
LWH lightweight helmet (Marine Corps) TBI traumatic brain injury
xvii

xviii ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
UCB upper confidence bound UVA University of Virginia

UHMWPE
ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene
USSOCOM
United States Special Operations WWII World War II
Command
UTL upper tolerance limit XL extra large

Summary
CONTEXT AND TASKING combat helmets and prepare a report. The statement of task
for the committee is as follows:
In 2007, the Secretary of Defense asked the Director of
Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) to take over the
• Evaluate the adequacy of the Advanced Combat Hel-
responsibility to prescribe policy and procedures for the
met test protocol for both first article testing and lot
conduct of live-fire test and evaluation of body armor and
acceptance testing, including its use of the metrics of
helmets. A 2009 report by the Department of Defense’s
probability of no penetration and the upper tolerance
(DoD) Inspector General recommended that the DOT&E
limit (used to evaluate backface deformation).
“develop for Department-wide implementation a standard
• Evaluate the appropriate use of statistical techniques
test operations procedure for body armor inserts” that
(e.g., rounding numbers, choosing sample sizes, or
includes “statistical specification of probability of perfor-
test designs) in gathering the data.
mance and associated confidence in that performance” (DoD
• Evaluate the adequacy of the current helmet testing
IG, 2009). As a result of this recommendation, DOT&E
procedure to determine the level of protection pro-
developed and published statistically based test protocols for
vided by current helmet performance specifications.
body armor and for combat helmets, in April and December,
• Evaluate procedures for the conduct of additional
2010, respectively.
analysis of penetration and backface deformation
In June 2012, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) sent a letter
data to determine whether differences in performance
(Slaughter, 2012)1 to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
exist.
expressing concerns that the new protocol 2 for ballistic
• Evaluate the scope of characterization testing relative
testing for the Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) posed
to the benefit of the information obtained.
“an unacceptably high risk” for such protective equip-
ment. Dr. Michael Gilmore, DOT&E, responded to Rep.
This report is the result of the committee’s deliberations.
Slaughter’s letter (Gilmore, 2012)3 on July 13, 2012. As
part of this response, he noted that DOT&E would request
the assistance of the National Academies’ National Research CURRENT PROTOCOLS
Council (NRC) to determine the adequacy of the ballistic
The ACH was introduced by the Army in 2002 and
helmet testing methodology.
continues to be produced. The advance production order
The NRC set up the Committee on Review of Test Proto-
was for 1.08 million helmets, and these are in sustainment.
cols Used by the DoD to Test Combat Helmets to consider
When a manufacturer proposes to produce ACHs for the
the technical issues relating to test protocols for military
Army, it submits a sample for first article testing (FAT).
If the helmet design passes the FAT, the manufacturer will
1The
start production. The produced helmets must be subjected
full text of Rep. Slaughter’s letter to Secretary Panetta is in Ap-
pendix A.
to a lot acceptance test (LAT) for a quality check before the
2The December 7, 2010, protocol for first article testing is superseded lot is accepted.
by the September 20, 2011, protocol for first article testing. This protocol, The FAT process involves a suite of ballistic shots, with
including the May 4, 2012, protocol for lot acceptance testing, is found in the primary one being 9-mm shots at a specified velocity
Appendix B. and at specified helmet locations. Two measures are used to
3The full text of Director Gilmore’s response to Rep. Slaughter is in
Appendix A.
assess the performance of helmets during the test process:

2 REVIEW OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE TEST PROTOCOLS FOR COMBAT HELMETS
n c
1.0 20 0
240 17
n sample size
0.8 c acceptance number
Probability of Acceptance
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
Probability of Penetration
FIGURE S-1 Operating characteristic curves for the Army’s and the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation’s first article testing pro-
tocols for penetration. The blue lines show the probabilities of acceptance for the two plans when the true probability of penetration is 0.1.
resistance to penetration (RTP) and backface deformation 90/90 standard in Director Gilmore’s letter and elsewhere
(BFD).4 by DOT&E: If the probability of non-penetration is 0.9 or
The original Army FAT protocol consisted of 20 9-mm less, then the helmet design has at least a 90 percent chance
shots (four helmets and shots at five specified locations on a of failing the FAT.
helmet). The helmets were all the same size, and one helmet In developing its protocol, DOT&E decided to increase
each was exposed to one of four environmental conditions. the number of helmets tested from 4 to 48. Five shots were
A manufacturer’s helmet design was deemed to pass FAT taken at five different locations on a helmet (as was the case
for penetration if there were zero penetrations out of the 20 with the Army’s protocol), leading to a total of n = 240 shots.
shots. This is an example of a c-out-of-n test plan in the sta- DOT&E applied the same 90/90 standard to get the number
tistical quality control literature; in this case, c = 0 and n = 20. of acceptable penetrations as c = 17. In other words, the
The properties of a test plan can be obtained from its helmet design passes FAT if there are17 or fewer penetra-
operating characteristic (OC) curve, which is a plot of the tions in 240 shots and fails otherwise. The dashed red curve
probability of passing the test (y-axis) as a function of the in Figure S-1 shows the OC curve for this plan developed
penetration probability of a single shot (x-axis). The solid by DOT&E. It can be seen that, if the true probability of
black curve in Figure S-1 gives the OC curve for the Army’s penetration is 0.10, the probability of acceptance equals 0.10
0-out-of-20 plan. The blue line shows that, if the true prob- (satisfying the 90/90 standard).
ability of penetration is 0.10, the probability of passing the It is this change in the protocol, from zero penetrations
test is about5 0.10. This property has been referred to as the (out of 20 shots) to allowing as many as 17 penetrations (out
of 240 shots), that resulted in Rep. Slaughter’s concern with
4RTP is a binary outcome indicating whether or not there is a complete the safety of Army combat helmets. In his response, Direc-
penetration of the helmet shell. BFD is measured by the maximum depth of tor Gilmore noted that DOT&E’s plan had (essentially6) the
the deformation that is imprinted by the helmet on the clay surface of the same 90/90 property as the Army’s legacy plan. Further, it
headform. (Formal definitions are given in Chapter 5.)
5The actual probability of acceptance for the 0-out-of-20 plan is slightly had better statistical properties because a larger number of
higher than 0.10. The 0-out-of-22 plan is closer to the 90/90 standard. This
was noted in Dr. Gilmore’s response to Rep. Slaughter. 6See footnote 5.

SUMMARY 3
n c
1.0 20 0
240 17
n sample size
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
FIGURE S-2 Further comparisons of the operating characteristic curves for the Army’s and the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation’s
first article testing protocols for penetration. The blue lines show the probabilities of acceptance for the two plans when the true probability
of penetration is 0.1; the purple and green lines show the corresponding acceptance probabilities when the true penetration probabilities are,
respectively, 0.005 and 0.05.
helmets and multiple helmet sizes were tested under different letter, there are indeed advantages associated with increasing
environmental conditions, and, therefore, the new protocol the number of helmets tested.
was an improvement. However, a key issue is whether the 90/90 standard, which
was used to develop the protocol, is appropriate. In addition,
that standard specifies only one point on the OC curve in
Comparison of FAT Protocols for Penetration
developing the test plan, but, in fact, the whole curve and the
The committee first considers FAT protocols for RTP plan’s incentives and risks need to be considered. Figure S-2
because these were the focus of the correspondence between provides a re-examination of the OC curves for the Army’s
Rep. Slaughter and Director Gilmore. FAT protocols involv- and DOT&E’s protocols. As in Figure S-1, the black curve
ing BFD are discussed in Chapter 7. LAT protocols for both is for the Army’s 0-out-of-20 plan, and the red curve is for
RTP and BFD are considered in Chapter 8. DOT&E’s 17-out-of-240 plan. Each curve shows how the
The committee emphasizes an obvious point: The Army’s probability of accepting a helmet design (y-axis) varies as
legacy protocol allowed zero penetrations in 20 shots, but the underlying probability of penetration (x-axis) varies. As
that did not imply that a helmet design that passes FAT has noted in Figure S-1, the two curves cross at a point close
zero probability of penetration. to penetration probability of 0.10 (blue line). To the left of
Further, there are good statistical reasons to justify this curve, DOT&E’s plan (in red) has higher probabilities
DOT&E’s increase in the number of helmets tested to 48 of acceptance (passing FAT); to the right it has lower prob-
helmets from the Army’s 5. One gets more precise estimates abilities. In other words, the DOT&E’s plan is less stringent
of the penetration probability from 240 shots than 20 shots. (easier to pass) than the original 0-out-of-20 plan if the actual
In addition, DOT&E’s plan allows better statistical com- penetration probability is less than 0.10 and more difficult
parison of possible differences between helmet sizes and to pass if the penetration probability is higher than 0.10.
environmental conditions. So, as pointed out in Dr. Gilmore’s However, as we will see below, there are more pertinent pen-
etration probabilities at which the plans should be compared.

Data made available to the committee show that manu- Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), should use this
facturers are currently producing ACHs with penetration information to set the appropriate standard for performance
probabilities around 0.005 or less (overall, there were 7 pen- metrics in the test protocols. In the absence of such a sci-
etrations in 12,147 shots; see Chapter 5). This corresponds to entific basis, DOT&E should develop a plan that provides
the purple line in Figure S-2. At this penetration probability assurance that it leads to the production of helmets that are
of 0.005, the probability of passing the FAT is close to 1.0 for at least as penetration resistant as currently fielded helmets.
DOT&E’s protocol (red curve), while it is about 0.9 for the
Army’s legacy protocol (black curve). So the manufacturer’s Director Gilmore’s response to Rep. Slaughter notes that
risks (probabilities of not passing the FAT) at a penetration the “Services and the U.S. Special Operations Command
probability of 0.005 are zero and 0.1 respectively. These are have endorsed the 90/90 standard for no perforation.”7
relatively small values, as they should be. Despite this assurance, the committee is concerned that
Consider the green line in Figure S-2 that corresponds to a DOT&E’s protocol may have unintended consequences.
penetration probability of 0.05, an order of magnitude higher As noted earlier, under the new DOT&E protocol, there is
than the current penetration level of 0.005. For this value, the a high probability of passing the test even if the penetration
DOT&E’s plan (red curve), has an acceptance probability of probability is an order of magnitude higher than the current
about 0.95, while the Army’s legacy plan (black curve) has levels. Therefore manufacturers may not have an incentive to
a probability of about 0.38. In other words, if manufacturers sustain the current levels of penetration resistance.
produce helmets with a penetration probability of 0.05 (as Of course, future designs of helmets may involve other
noted, an order of magnitude higher than the current level), considerations such as lower weight and added mobility. It
they have a 95 percent chance of passing the FAT under the is possible that manufacturers and the government have to
current DOT&E protocol; that is, the government’s risk is compromise on the penetration probability levels in order to
0.95. In comparison, the government’s risk under the Army’s produce lighter helmets. However, the added benefits of such
legacy plan is 0.38. design changes would have to be studied and demonstrated
So the question comes down to the following: What is the before one accepts higher levels of penetration. In the case
appropriate level of penetration probability at which the gov- of the ACH, there have been no such design changes.
ernment’s risk should be controlled? By selecting the 90/90
standard, DOT&E has set this penetration probability at 0.10,
The Army’s Modified Protocol
a value that is roughly two orders of magnitude greater than
where the manufacturers are currently operating. In 2012, with DOT&E’s approval, the Army modified the
Now, for business reasons, the manufacturers would want 17-out-of-240 plan to a two-stage protocol. The two stages
to design a helmet that has a high chance of passing the test involve conducting a 0-out-of-22 plan in the first stage, and,
while meeting the other helmet criteria such as weight. If if the helmet design passes this test, then a second 17-out-
there is a high probability of passing the test, even if the of-218 plan is used, for a total of 240 shots and a combined
penetration probability is an order of magnitude higher than acceptable number of penetrations of 17. The first stage, the
the current levels, manufacturers may not have an incentive 0-out-of-22 plan, is slightly more stringent than the Army’s
to sustain the current levels of penetration-resistance, and, 0-out-of-20 legacy plan, so this modified plan provides an
hence, helmet safety could possibly be degraded. incentive for manufacturers to achieve a penetration prob-
As noted in Chapters 3, 6, and 10, there is currently no ability of 0.005 or less.
scientific basis for linking performance metrics to brain
injuries. The report notes, in Chapter 3 and elsewhere, that Finding 6-4. The Army’s modified plan satisfies the criterion
there is a need to initiate research that connects performance that it provides an incentive for manufacturers to produce
metrics to brain injuries. helmets that are at least as penetration-resistant as current
helmets.
Recommendation 3-4. The Department of Defense should
vigorously pursue efforts to provide a biomedical basis for The second stage of this plan allows 17 penetrations
assessing the risk of helmet backface injuries. out of 218 shots, or equivalently, a penetration probability
level of 17/218 = 0.08. However, a helmet design with 0.08
While these links are being developed, it is important penetration probability has a very small chance of being
that the performance of new helmet systems is at least as
good as previous helmet systems, as measured by current 7Director Gilmore’s letter, reprinted in Appendix A, also noted, “The
performance metrics. ational Research Council (NRC), in its recent independent technical review
N
of the Department’s testing of body armor, indicated that this approach to
Recommendation 6-2. If there is a scientific basis to link testing is scientifically defensible.” It should be emphasized, however, that the
brain injury with performance metrics (such as penetra- Committee on Testing of Body Armor Materials for Use by the U.S. Army—
Phase III did not explicitly endorse the 90/90 standard. Further, the standards
tion frequency and backface deformation), the Director of for helmets should be determined independently of those for body armor.

SUMMARY 5
accepted in the first stage, so the two-stage plan will reject

such a helmet design. Recommendation 7-1. The Director of Operational Test and
Evaluation should revert to the more transparent and robust
analysis of backface deformation data based on pass/fail
CONSIDERATIONS IN DEVELOPING NEW PROTOCOLS
scoring of each measurement.
Although the Army’s modified protocol can be a short-
term solution, the committee encourages DOT&E to consider However, it is important to conduct post-test analysis of the
the various findings and recommendations in the report and continuous BFD measurements and monitor them over time.
develop a better alternative to its current protocols. These
findings and recommendations are described in Chapters 5 Recommendation 7-3. The Office of the Director, Opera-
through 9 of the report. Some of the important considerations tional Test and Evaluation, and the Services should analyze
identified in the report include the following: the continuous backface deformation measurements, com-
pute the margins, and track them over time to assess any
• What is the appropriate level at which government’s changes over time.
risk should be controlled? The 90/90 standard implies
that it should be controlled at a penetration probability • The different-sized helmets are intrinsically different
of 0.10. However, manufacturers are currently produc- products with different shells, molds, and manufac-
ing ACHs with a penetration probability of around turing settings, and consideration should be given to
0.005 or less, which is substantially lower than 0.10. testing them separately. Further, separating by helmet
sizes will simplify some of the complexities associ-
Recommendation 6-3. The government’s risk should be ated with current test processes.
controlled at much lower penetration levels than the 0.10
value specified by the 90/90 standard. Recommendation 5-5. Current Office of the Director,
Operational Test and Evaluation, protocols should be revised
• When DoD adopts new helmets with changes to the and implemented separately by helmet size.
design (such as lighter weight and added mobility),
it will be necessary to reevaluate the protocols. For • Data made available to the committee indicate that
example, it may not be possible for manufactur- there may be considerable differences in the distribu-
ers to produce lighter helmets at current levels of tions of the BFD data across helmet sizes and shot
penetration. locations. DOT&E is considering the use of prelimi-
nary hypothesis tests on BFD data and pooling the
Recommendation 9-1. When combat helmets with new data across the different settings if the hypotheses are
designs are introduced, the Department of Defense should not rejected. The committee has reservations about
conduct appropriate characterization studies and cost-benefit the use of such procedures. The changes to binary
analyses to evaluate the design changes before making deci- data for BFD test plans and the implementation of
sions. It is not advisable to automatically apply the same protocols by helmet size will mediate the effect of
standard (such as the 90/90 rule or others) when these tests heterogeneity among shot locations.
could potentially be across different protective equipment
(body armor, helmets, etc.), different numbers of tests (e.g., It was not part of the committee’s charge to offer specific
96 tests for the Enhanced Combat Helmet, 240 tests for the alternative test protocols. However, several alternative plans
Advanced Combat Helmet), or over time. and their properties are discussed in this report to assist in
DOT&E’s efforts to develop an appropriate plan.
• The current BFD protocols use upper tolerance limits DOT&E has indicated that as data are obtained its proto-
based on the assumption that the data are normally col will be updated and modified. The committee’s findings
distributed. One has to be cautious in using protocols are in that spirit: Available data indicate that penetrations are
that are sensitive to such parametric assumptions. rare events (penetration probability of 0.005 or less). There-
Further, the use of pretests to check on assumptions fore, an alternative protocol has to be developed such that
of homogeneity, as has been proposed by DOT&E, ACH manufacturers have an incentive to maintain that level
would lead to complexity in the analysis and, more of penetration-resistance. The 17-out-of-240 FAT protocol
importantly, the properties of the BFD protocols. does not provide such incentive.
When the test sample size is large (as is the case with The report compares the performance of DOT&E’s
DOT&E’s proposed plan of 240 shots), it is prefer- 17-out-of-240 with the Army’s legacy plan of 0-out-of-20
able to use protocols that do not rely on parametric at various places. The main reason for such comparisons,
assumptions, are more transparent, and are easier to as discussed earlier, is that any new plan should lead to the
interpret. production of helmets that are at least as penetration-resistant

as currently fielded helmets. However, the committee reiter- • Brain injury tolerances determined in the past, and
ates that there are important advantages to the increased test continuing to be developed for vehicle and sports
size in DOT&E’s plan compared to the Army’s legacy plan. collisions, are based on stresses and stress rates that
Any modification to DOT&E’s plan should retain the benefits are significantly different from those for ballistic and
obtained from the increased test size, although the report blast stresses.
does not make any specific recommendation on test size.
Most of the findings are recommendations in Chapters
3 and 10 are in response to the third point in the commit-
ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT
tee’s statement of task: Evaluate the adequacy of current
This report includes 10 chapters and several appendixes. testing to determine the level of protection provided by
Chapter 1 provides an introduction and overview. Chapter 2 the ACH.
describes the history and evolution of the combat helmet as Chapters 4-9 deal primarily with statistical issues. Chap-
well as recent advances in design, materials, and manufac- ter 4 describes the testing and measurement processes for
turing processes. combat helmets, including the test threats and the different
Chapter 3 describes historical wounding patterns and sources of variation. The Phase II report on body armor test-
recent and emerging threats as well as the biomechanical ing noted the need to conduct a formal gauge repeatability
basis for penetration and blunt trauma. The latter topic is and reproducibility (R&R) study to determine the sources
taken up in more detail in Chapter 10, which presents the of variation in the test process (NRC, 2012). It appears that
gaps in medical knowledge of brain injury tolerances relative such a study has not been done. In view of the costs involved
to current standards of helmet protection. The key findings in testing and the benefits to be gained from an R&R study,
and recommendations from these two chapters include the the committee reiterates the importance of carrying out such
following: a study.
• Wounding from an explosive source (including Recommendation 4-1. The Department of Defense should
fragmentation from bombs, mines, and artillery) conduct a formal gauge repeatability and reproducibility
has dominated injuries in all major modern conflicts study to determine the magnitudes of the sources of test
since World War II. Blast and blunt trauma are variation, particularly the relative contributions of the vari-
increasingly becoming a major source of injuries. ous sources from the testing methodology versus the varia-
tion inherent in the helmets. The Army and the Office of the
Recommendation 3-1. The Department of Defense should Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, should use the
ensure that appropriate threats, in particular fragmentation results of the gauge repeatability and reproducibility study to
threats, from current and emerging threat profiles are used make informed decisions about whether and how to improve
in testing. the testing process.
Recommendation 3-3. The Department of Defense should Chapter 5 provides a formal definition of the performance
reassess helmet requirements for current and potential measures—resistance to penetration (RTP) and backface
future fragmentation threats, especially for fragments ener- deformation (BFD)—and discusses their limitations. The
gized by blast and for ballistic threats. The reassessment results from analyses of FAT and LAT data made available
should examine redundancy among design threats, such as to the committee are also described here. These data showed
the 2-grain versus the 4-grain and the 16-grain versus the considerable heterogeneity among helmet sizes and shot
17-grain. Elimination of tests found to be redundant may locations.
allow resources to be directed at a wider diversity of realistic Chapters 6 and 7 are concerned with the evaluation and
ballistic threats, including larger mass artillery fragments, comparison of FAT protocols for RTP and BFD, respectively.
bullets other than the 9-mm, and improvised explosive device Most of the key findings and recommendations from these
fragments. This effort should also examine the effects of chapters are summarized above.
shape, mass, and other parameters of current fragmentation Chapter 8 deals with LAT, with major findings and recom-
threats and differentiate these from important characteristics mendations that mirror those for FAT. In addition, Chapter 8
of design ballistic threats. describes how the current LAT protocols can be modified to
conform to American National Standards Institute standard.
• Unlike body armor, there is not any indirect biome- Chapter 9 responds to the committee’s charge to evaluate
chanical connection between the backface deforma- the scope of current characterization testing and recommend
tion assessment in the current test methodology and additional studies. A number of additional characterization
brain injuries from behind-helmet deformation. studies for new helmet designs as part of a broader program
on characterization are suggested.

SUMMARY 7
CONCLUDING REMARKS nology capability and the needs of the soldier on the
battlefield. Further, it is important that the design of
The committee commends the Director of Operational
test plans focus on that region of the OC curve at
Test and Evaluation and his office for their efforts to bring
which the helmet is expected to perform.
scientific rigor to the testing of combat helmets. These efforts
are of critical importance to the safety and morale of the men
Throughout the course of the committee’s research and
and women of the U.S. armed services. The committee also
deliberations, it became quite clear that DOT&E’s and the
applauds Rep. Slaughter for her active oversight in this area.
Army’s goal is to ensure that combat helmets (and all per-
The overarching messages in this report are:
sonal protective equipment) are manufactured and tested to
the highest possible standards. It is the committee’s hope
• There is an urgent need for the Department of
that this report helps DOT&E and DoD in their continued
Defense to establish a research program to develop
pursuit of this goal.
helmet test metrics that have a clear scientific link
to the modes of human injury from ballistic impact,
blast, and blunt trauma. REFERENCES
• It is critical that test profiles for combat helmets be DoD IG (Department of Defense Inspector General). 2009. D-2009-047.
modified to include appropriate threats from current DoD Testing Requirements for Body Armor. Washington, D.C.: Depart-
and emerging threats. ment of Defense.
• The development of test protocols must be based on Gilmore, J.M. 2012. Letter from J. Michael Gilmore, Director, Operational
Test and Evaluation, to Representative Louise M. Slaughter, July 13.
appropriately derived OC curves, where such curves
NRC (National Research Council). 2012. Phase III Report on Review of the
will likely be unique to each helmet type and design, Testing of Body Armor Materials for Use by the U.S. Army. Washington,
which is intentionally chosen to match current tech- D.C.: The National Academies Press.
Slaughter, L.M. 2012. Letter from Representative Louise M. Slaughter to
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, June 26, 2012.

Introduction
This chapter provides the study context and statement of tance testing, including its use of the metrics of probabil-
task. It also describes the scope of the study and includes ity of no penetration and the upper tolerance limit (used
summaries of the various chapters in the report. to evaluate backface deformation).
In June 2012, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) sent a let- • Evaluate the appropriate use of statistical techniques
(e.g., rounding numbers, choosing sample sizes, or test
ter (Slaughter, 2012)1 to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
designs) in gathering the data.
expressing concerns that a recent modification to the stan-
• Evaluate the adequacy of the current helmet testing pro-
dard for ballistic testing for the Advanced Combat Helmet cedure to determine the level of protection provided by
(ACH) posed “an unacceptably high risk” for such protective current helmet performance specifications.
equipment. She urged that ballistics testing procedures be • Evaluate procedures for the conduct of additional analysis
modified. of penetration and backface deformation data to deter-
The July 13, 2012, response to Rep. Slaughter (Gilmore, mine whether differences in performance exist.
2012)2 was made by J. Michael Gilmore, Director of Opera- • Evaluate the scope of characterization testing relative to
tional Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), the principal staff the benefit of the information obtained.
assistant and advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary
of Defense for operational test and evaluation and live-fire 1.0 INFORMATION GATHERING
test and evaluation matters. He expressed the view that the
revised test protocol for the ACH is “better in several ways The committee held six meetings. The first was held in
that the previously used protocol while being designed to Aberdeen, Maryland, and included a site visit to the combat
demonstrate the same level of protection (probability of per- helmet test range at the Aberdeen Test Center. The second
foration) and also the same level of certainty of our knowl- through sixth meetings were held at the Academies’ facili-
edge of the level of protection.” However, he also noted that ties in Washington, D.C., and Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
DOT&E was requesting that the National Research Council A total of 18 presentations were received from the following
conduct a study to review the revised protocol for testing entities:
military combat helmets. This report is the result of that
request. Following is the statement of task. • Offices within the United States Army, the Marine
Corps, and the Special Operations Forces
The National Research Council will establish an ad hoc • Manufacturers of combat helmets
committee to consider the technical issues relating to test • Office of the Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector
protocols for military combat helmets and prepare a re- General
port. The committee will examine the testing protocols along
the following lines: The titles of the presentations are listed in Appendix C.
• Evaluate the adequacy of the Advanced Combat Helmet
test protocol for both first article testing and lot accep- 1.1 SUMMARY OF THE REPORT
The report contains 10 chapters and several appendices.
1The text of Rep. Slaughter’s letter to Secretary Panetta is found in Ap- This is an introductory chapter. Summaries of the remaining
pendix A. chapters are given below.
2The text of Director Gilmore’s letter to Rep. Slaughter is found in Ap-
pendix A.

INTRODUCTION 9
Chapter 2: Evolution of Combat Helmets by a 9-mm bullet, fired under specified conditions, is on the
order of 0.005 or less. Available BFD data show that the prob-
Chapter 2 describes the changes in design and materials,
ability of exceeding the BFD thresholds is also around 0.005
from those used in World War I to today’s ACH. One of
or less. The distributions of the BFD data also demonstrate
the key advances was the development of aramid fibers in
significant differences among helmet sizes and shot locations.
the 1960s, which led to today’s Kevlar-based helmets. The
Some of the performance differences among helmet sizes may
DoD is continuing to invest in research to improve helmet
be attributed to the test process, such as headforms and stand-
performance, through better design and materials as well as
offs. Many others are likely to be due to the differences in the
better manufacturing processes.
geometry of helmet shells, molds, manufacturing processes,
and other factors. In fact, helmets of different sizes are intrinsi-
Chapter 3: Threats, Head Injuries, and Test cally different products. Based on this, Recommendation 5-5
Methodologies proposes changes to DoD’s test protocols. This is one of the
major recommendations in the report.
A variety of threats lead to head injuries in the battle-
field. Since World War II, the predominant threats have
been from the following: fragmentation and ballistic threats Chapter 6: FAT Protocols for Resistance to Penetration:
from explosions, artillery, and small arms fire; blunt trauma Statistical Considerations and Evaluation of DOD Test
caused by translation from blast, falls, vehicle crashes, and Plans
impact with vehicle interiors and from parachute drops; and
The test protocols for Army helmets were originally based
exposure to primary blasts. Key findings in this chapter
on a requirement of zero penetrations in 20 shots (5 shots
indicate the following:
on 4 helmets). The DOT&E protocol replaced this legacy
plan with a requirement of 17 or fewer penetrations in 240
• Wounding from an explosive source (e.g., fragmenta-
shots (5 shots on each of 48 helmets). The helmets spanned
tion from bombs, mines, and artillery) dominates all
four sizes and were tested in four different environments.
wounding, including bullets.
The 0-out-of-20 (0, 20) plan and DOT&E’s 17-out-of-240
• Nonbattle causes, including blunt traumatic injuries,
(17, 240) plan have comparable performance if the probability
produced nearly 50 percent of the hospitalizations for
of penetrating a helmet shell on a single shot is around 0.10.
traumatic brain injury in Iraq/Afghanistan.
As noted in the Chapter 5, available data indicate that these
• There is no biomechanical link in the current test
penetration probabilities are around 0.005 or less. Near this
methodology between the backface deformation
value of penetration probability, both plans have a 90 percent
(BFD) assessment and head injuries from behind-
or higher chance of passing the test, so the manufacturer’s risk
helmet deformation.
is small, as it should be. However, if there is a 10-fold increase
in the penetration probability from the current level of 0.005
There is a need to revise test methodologies to focus on
to 0.05, DOT&E’s (17, 240) plan still has a 95 percent chance
the dominant threats. The current protocol addresses primar-
of acceptance. This provides little incentive for the manufac-
ily rounds from 9-mm pistol fire, which is a relatively small
turer to sustain current penetration levels. The (0, 20) plan, on
contributor to soldier injuries. It is also important to develop
the other hand, has only a 38 percent chance of acceptance.
better understanding of the scientific connection between
Thus, the (17, 240) plan may have the unintended effect of
head injuries and the performance metrics used in current
leading to a reduction in helmet penetration resistance. In the
test methodology.
absence of a link between penetration probability and human
injury, there is no scientific basis for setting a limit on the
Chapter 4: Combat Helmet Testing penetration probability. In such a circumstance, the commit-
tee’s view is that the objective of a new test plan should be to
Chapter 4 describes how combat helmets are tested. It
provide assurance that newly submitted helmets are at least
includes a brief summary of the testing process, a description
as penetration resistant as current helmets. Chapter 6 also
of the test threats, and a discussion of the various sources of
proposes appropriate criteria for selecting test protocols and
variation in the testing process.
illustrates their use through several plans.
Chapter 5: Helmet Performance Measures and Trends in

Chapter 7: Test Protocols for Backface Deformation:
Test Data
Statistical Considerations and Assessment
A helmet’s protective capabilities are evaluated on the basis
The original Army protocols for BFD were based on
of two primary test measures: resistance to penetration (RTP)
binary (0-1) data. The BFD measurement at each location
and BFD. These are formally defined, and their limitations are
was compared against its specified threshold, and the outcome
discussed in this chapter. RTP data available to the committee
was scored as a “1” (failure) if it exceeded its threshold. This
indicate that the probability of penetration of a helmet shell

original plan was based on 20 shots; if no BFD measurements Chapter 9: Characterization Tests for ACH and Future
exceeded their limit, the demonstration was successful. In this Helmets
sense, it was similar to Army’s legacy protocol for RTP. The
The committee was tasked to “evaluate the scope of char-
DOT&E protocol expanded the number of shots to 240 and
acterization testing relative to the benefit of the information
used the continuous measurements together with an assump-
obtained.” The term “characterization” is broad and is used
tion that the data are normally distributed. Specifically, the
in different ways in different contexts. However, DOT&E
plan compared the 90 percent “upper-tolerance limits” com-
provided additional information to elaborate on this task.
puted at 90 percent confidence level (90/90 rule) with their
Most of the issues raised by DOT&E that relate to this task
thresholds for the corresponding location on the helmet. As
are addressed in this chapter. Chapter 9 also describes addi-
noted in Chapter 5, available BFD test data show that the
tional characterization tests that are needed. Some of these
probability of BFD exceeding its limits is quite small—on
are intended for future helmet designs. A number of these
the order of 0.005. As this chapter observes, DOT&E’s BFD
additional tests have been discussed in earlier chapters and
protocol has about a 90 percent chance of accepting the hel-
are repeated here because they can be viewed as being related
met design, even if there is an order of magnitude increase
to characterization studies. These include the following: eval-
in the exceedance probability (from 0.005 to 0.05). This
uating helmet performance across a more realistic, broader
weakens the incentive for manufacturers to produce helmets
range of threats; assessing the effect of aging; understanding
that are at least as good as current helmets with respect to
the relationship between helmet offsets and helmet protec-
BFD. In addition, the DOT&E protocols are based on an (a
tion; and conducting gauge repeatability and reproducibility
priori untestable) assumption of normality and the complex
studies to understand the different sources of variation in the
notion of an upper tolerance limit. Recommendation 7-1
test process and possibly providing opportunities to reduce
proposes that DOT&E’s protocol for BDF data be changed.
some of the variation. Chapter 9 also includes a discussion of
This change has the added advantage that the BFD protocol
current V50—the velocity at which complete penetration and
would exactly parallel the RTP protocol and would be easy
partial penetration are equally likely to occur—testing and an
for designers and manufacturers to understand and interpret.
alternative methodology as well as a discussion of industrial
However, it is important that, after testing, the continuous
practices in characterizing process capability.
BFD measurements be analyzed to assess the actual BFD
levels and monitor them for changes over time.
Chapter 10: Linking Helmet Protection to Brain Injury
Chapter 8: Lot Acceptance Testing The relationships between helmet deformation and brain
injury are not well known. Most of the studies in biomechani-
Lot acceptance testing (LAT) is used to ensure that manu-
cal engineering and medicine are related to sports and vehicle
facturers continue to produce helmets that conform to contract
collisions, and these investigations are based on a different
specifications. A random sample of helmets is selected from
range of stresses and stress rates from those encountered in
the production lot, and the helmet shells, as well as hard-
the battlefield. The aim of Chapter 10 is to present informa-
ware, are tested according to the LAT protocol. The number
tion on what is known, and the gaps in knowledge, about the
of helmets in the protocols is determined from an American
linkage between brain injury and current battlefield threats.
National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard, and they vary
The major finding is that helmet protection from penetration
by lot size. Chapter 8 examines the operating characteristic
and BFD greater than a particular value does not protect the
(OC) curves for DOT&E’s LAT plans and compares them
brain from occurrence of many categories of tissue injury.
with FAT protocols in the Army’s legacy plans and DOT&E’s
This chapter discusses recommendations that can help focus
plans. The OC curves for the LAT plans for the different lot
research, including determination of the prevalence of revers-
sizes can vary a lot, indicating that the manufacturer’s and
ible declines in hormonal function years after brain trauma
government’s risks can be quite different across lot sizes.
and acceleration of research in computational modeling and
This is primarily due to the different sample sizes (number
simulation that can show shear stress fields associated with
of helmets and number of shots) as determined from an ANSI
the known spectrum of threats and the protective capabilities
standard. Further, DOT&E’s first article testing (FAT) proto-
of helmets.
cols are considerably less stringent (higher probabilities of
acceptance for the OC curves) than their corresponding LAT
protocols. This is counter to the philosophy that it should be 1.2 REFERENCES
more difficult for manufacturers to pass FAT than LAT. This Gilmore, J.M. 2012. Letter from J. Michael Gilmore, Director of Operation-
issue can be addressed if DOT&E makes changes to the (17, al Test and Evaluation, to Representative Louise M. Slaughter, July 13.
240) FAT protocol as discussed in Chapters 6 and 7. Chapter Slaughter, L.M. 2012. Letter from Representative Louise M. Slaughter to
8 also proposes using binary data for BFD LAT protocols, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, June 26.
to make them consistent with the recommendations for FAT.
Finally, the committee examines the properties of LAT pro-
tocols based on helmets as the unit of testing.

Evolution of Combat Helmets
2.0 SUMMARY based on Hadfield steel, called the M1 “steel pot,” in 1942.
These helmets remained in service until the mid-1980s when
Combat helmets have evolved considerably over the
they were replaced with helmets manufactured from a non-
years. This chapter describes the changes in design and mate-
metallic material. Small numbers of the M1 helmet are still
rials, from those used in World War I to today’s Advanced
used today in special missions such as shipboard firefighting.
Combat Helmet (ACH). One of the key advances was the
The beginning of World War II also saw an escalation in
development of aramid fibers in the 1960s, which led to
the lethality of ballistic threats, resulting in higher fatalities
today’s Kevlar-based helmets. The Department of Defense
and injuries. The bullets and shrapnel in World War II had
(DoD) is continuing to invest in research to improve helmet
greater mass and higher velocities. As was the case with
performance, through better design and materials as well as
World War I, soldiers initially resisted wearing helmets. They
better manufacturing processes.
felt that the 3.5-lb helmet was too heavy, and that it limited
hearing, vision, and mobility of the wearer. However, the
2.1 INTRODUCTION troops quickly accepted the trade-off when they observed the
lethality of the munitions on the battlefield and recognized
In early usage, soldiers wore equipment made of leather
the protection provided by the helmet.
or cloth in an attempt to protect their heads from sword cuts
Figure 2-1 illustrates the evolution of U.S. military hel-
and other blows. When rifled firearms were introduced in
mets since World War I. The rest of this chapter discusses
the late 1700s, this equipment was found to be inadequate,
the evolution and developments in some detail.
and its use declined considerably. Over time, the equipment
transitioned from providing protection to being an accessory
worn for pageantry and unit recognition. 2.2 NEW MATERIALS AND DESIGNS
World War I saw a substantial increase in the effectiveness
DuPont invented a new material called aramid fiber in the
and lethality of artillery, resulting in a new focus on protec-
1960s. This was a class of strong, heat-resistant synthetic
tive equipment, including helmets. The primary threat during
fibers that had many desirable properties. It was eventually
this conflict was fragmenting projectiles, and helmets made
marketed under the trade name of Kevlar, and the name
with steel were introduced for protection in Europe in 1915.
would become synonymous with “bulletproof material.”
Even though stopping a rifle bullet was considered beyond
Kevlar represented a breakthrough, enabling a leap ahead in
the ability of the helmet materials at the time (due to weight
technology of synthetic composite materials. The U.S. gov-
considerations), there were enough benefits to warrant issu-
ernment selected Kevlar over other materials that were avail-
ing a helmet to all ground troops.
able at the time, such as nylon, e-glass fiber, and stretched
Around this time, the governments in Europe started to
polypropylene. The government was already molding the
invest considerable efforts on research dealing with helmet
M1 helmet liner with a similar matched-tool compression
design, materials, and support systems (such as chin straps
molding process, so that the same manufacturing process
and liners). This research resulted, among other advances,
could be used to make Kevlar helmets.
in a new grade of metal known as Hadfield steel. Different
The Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops (PASGT)
variations of these steel helmets were used by forces in the
was the first helmet to use Kevlar. PASGT refers to both vests
United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth during
and helmets made of Kevlar, and they were used by all mili-
World War I and later. The U.S. military adopted helmets
tary services from the mid-1980s to around the middle of
11

FIGURE 2-1 Evolution of helmets from World War I to present. SOURCE: Walsh et al. (2012).
the last decade. These helmets are still being used by some manufacture of thermoplastic-based fibers and matrices for
services but will be replaced in the future. affordable soldier protection systems. The programs focused
Figure 2-1 fixed image
The U.S. Special Operations Command designed and on developing new technologies, tooling, and hybridization
developed the Modular Integrated Communications Helmet techniques to enable commercially available and emerging
(MICH) as a replacement for PASGT. MICH had several grades of thermoplastic ballistic composite materials to be
changes, including improved Kevlar aramid-fiber reinforce- formed into complex helmet shapes. There was participation
ment, leading to better protection. They also allowed better from the Marine Corps, U.S. Special Operations Command,
fit and integration of communication headsets. MICH was and the industrial sector. These efforts enabled the develop-
adopted by the U.S. Army in 2002 as its basic helmet and ment of the Future Assault Shell Technology (FAST) hel-
renamed the Advanced Combat Helmet. The Marine Corps met, the Maritime helmet, and, ultimately, the U.S. Marine
decided to use a design profile that was similar to the PASGT Corps Enhanced Combat Helmet (ECH). The FAST helmet
and designated it the Light Weight Helmet (LWH). is significant for its early use of UHMWPE material and its
There were also developments in helmet retention sys- novel design.
tems. The M1 “steel pot” used a nylon cord suspension sys- To improve ballistic protection, the Army has initiated
tem, sweatband, and chinstrap, and the PASGT helmet and several developmental programs over the last decade. These
its variants also used similar retention systems. The MICH, include the Scorpion, Objective Force Warrior, and Future
ACH, and LWH helmets switched to a multi-pad and four- Force Warrior programs. The goal of the Scorpion program
point retention system (Figure 2-2) that had better impact was to improve protection and performance through an inte-
protection while providing increased comfort. grated system. It tried to address the continuing problem of
The next major advance in helmet technology resulted protection while also providing the soldier with capability,
from a combination of advances in materials and manufac- such as communications, hearing protection, and displays,
turing processes. A new generation of ultra-high-molecular- needed in an evolving battlefield environment. The pro-
weight polyethylene fibers (UHMWPE) was developed gram also explored the use of materials with better ballistic
in industry. In parallel, the government funded efforts to performance and processing concepts to deliver increased
address technology gaps that had previously precluded structural performance. In addition, the program examined
how to provide more options in helmet shaping, compat-

EVOLUTION OF COMBAT HELMETS 13
FIGURE 2-2 Helmet multi-pad and four-point retention systems. SOURCE: PEO Soldier, U.S. Army.
ibility, and ergonomics as wellFigure

as device andfixed
2-2, accoutrement
image awareness in all environmental and obscurant conditions
integration. These early efforts would ultimately result in an without sacrificing mobility and agility.
entirely new generation of helmet technologies, designs, and Unlike past considerations for fielded helmets, the HEaDS
manufacturing processes. UP program also explicitly acknowledges that the helmet is
no longer simply a device to prevent injury from fragments
and blunt impact. It recognizes that the helmet has become
2.3 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND DIRECTIONS
a platform to provide the soldier with new capabilities to
In 2009, the U.S. government launched the “Helmet enhance their survivability. The consequence is further
Electronics and Display System–Upgradeable Protection” device integration and modularization of accoutrements in
(HEaDS-UP) program, involving multiple organizations. or attached to the helmet. It might mean even more ballistic
As of 2012, it was the largest head-protection research and protection from small arms threats and maxillofacial (man-
development project within the Army. It leverages mul- dible) systems that can be rapidly donned or doffed. But the
tiple efforts—in the areas of ballistic materials (transparent advances are limited by the total amount of weight a soldier
and non-transparent), high-resolution miniature displays, is able to carry for an extended period of time.
and sensors—to design a modular-integrated headgear Continued improvement in materials is also leading to
system that takes into account the relevant ergonomics advances in helmet performance. For example, ECH delivers
considerations. much better protection against fragments compared to ACH,
The HEaDS UP program is designed to include participa- due to a shift to unidirectional UHMWPE fiber in a ther-
tion from a wide spectrum of Army organizations as well as moplastic matrix. The shift was also enabled by a new gen-
other services and government agencies. The goal of the pro- eration of preforms and manufacturing methods appropriate
gram is to provide two different and independently developed for UHMWPE. While other promising materials have been
concepts of an integrated headgear system and packages of identified (e.g., copolymers, graphene, and high-tenacity
design options as well as guidelines based on manufacturing UHMWPE), dramatic weight reduction without a significant
best practices, lessons learned, and technology maturation. loss in ballistic performance has been elusive.
The resulting insight will be used to develop an integrated Another factor in helmet protection is the way the con-
head, face, and neck protection headgear system that incor- stituent materials are assembled. Previous research results
porates modular, upgradeable protection. suggest that, in unidirectional UHMWPE panels, varying
The soldier-relevant goals are twofold: (1) reduced weight fiber orientation and fiber architecture can provide better
for equivalent protection and small increased weight for sig- balance between resistance-to-penetration and deformation
nificantly increased capabilities; and (2) increased situational

mitigation. Vargas-Gonzalez et al. (2011) have explored this DoD has undertaken extensive efforts to improve combat
issue for panels that had more architectural complexity. helmet designs. The design goal is to reduce injuries and
New materials are also under evaluation for mitigating injury severity, while achieving operational needs. However,
the effect of impacts to the head. Both recoverable and non- the goal of this report is to evaluate test protocols. In the
recoverable energy-absorbing materials are being considered following chapters, the extent to which the above goal—of
for use as helmet pads. Concepts for decoupling the helmet reducing injuries and injury severity—is achieved by the test
into a ballistic and impact shell (and using energy-absorbing programs is discussed.
materials between shells) are also being explored.
Novel manufacturing equipment and methodologies also
2.4 REFERENCES
have a role to play in improving performance. The first gen-
eration Helmet Preform Assembly Machine is an example of Vargas-Gonzalez, L.R., S.M. Walsh, and J.C. Gurganus. 2011. Examin-
ing the Relationship Between Ballistic and Structural Properties of
a process that exploited the ability of thermoplastic compos-
Lightweight Thermoplastic Unidirectional Composite Laminates. ARL-
ites to be locally consolidated, leading to a rapid, automated RP-0329. Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
method of stabilizing and building up helmet preforms. The Walsh, S.M., L.R. Vargas-Gonzalez, B.R. Scott, and D. Lee. 2012. Develop-
underlying lesson is that processing should also be explicitly ing an Integrated Rationale for Future Head Protection in Materials and
considered as an asset in pursuit of incremental performance Design. U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground,
Md.
gains in head protection materials and systems.

Threats, Head Injuries, and Test Methodologies
3.0 SUMMARY can also be distinguished by the duration of peak force.1 For
example, for blast loading injuries, the time to peak force
A variety of threats lead to head injuries in the battle-
and pressure occurs over a timescale of less than 100 micro-
field. Since World War II (WWII), the predominant threats
seconds. So, blast injuries of a given severity generally have
have been: fragmentation and ballistic threats from explo-
lower associated momentum and strains/displacements than
sions, artillery, and small arms fire; blunt trauma caused
those for blunt impact, which has peak forces occurring at
by translation from blast, falls, vehicle crashes, and impact
3 to 50 milliseconds. On the other hand, ergonomics-related
with vehicle interiors and from parachute drops; and expo-
injuries, such as those from heat, weight, lack-of-fit, and
sure to primary blasts. Key findings in this chapter indicate
long-term usage, typically take days and months.
the following:
The rest of this chapter describes head injuries and their
typical characteristics. The limitations of current injury test
• Wounding from an explosive source (e.g., fragmenta-
methodologies for assessing head injury risk, including the
tion from bombs, mines, and artillery) dominates all
lack of biomechanical links between test methodology and
wounding, including bullets.
injury, are also discussed.
• Non-battle causes, including blunt traumatic injuries,
produced nearly 50 percent of the hospitalizations for
traumatic brain injury in Iraq/Afghanistan. 3.2 HISTORICAL PATTERNS OF TREATABLE
• There is no biomechanical link in the current test INJURIES
methodology between the backface deformation
A number of studies have examined military wound-
assessment and head injuries from behind-helmet
ing of U.S. forces in major conflicts since WWII. See, for
deformation.
example, Emergency War Surgery (DoD, 2004); Bellamy
et al. (1986); Bellamy (1992); Carey (1996); Carey et al.
There is a need to revise test methodologies to focus on
(1998); and Owens et al. (2008). These studies are based on
the dominant threats. The current protocol addresses primar-
injuries/treatments reported from hospitalizations, including
ily rounds from 9-mm pistol fire, which is a relatively small
those who died of wounds in hospital. They show that the
contributor to soldier injuries. It is also important to develop
extremities are the predominant body region injured followed
better understanding of the scientific connection between
by head/neck (Table 3-2).
head injuries and the performance metrics used in current
Owens et al. (2008) reported that a total of 1,566 U.S.
test methodology.
soldiers sustained 6,609 combat wounds in Afghanistan
(Operation Enduring Force [OEF]) and Iraq (Operation
3.1 INTRODUCTION Enduring Freedom [OIF]). This implies an average of about
4.2 wounds per soldier, likely due to fragments. The data did
The major threats that have caused head injuries in recent
not include those killed in action, or returned to duty, but did
conflicts can be classified into three groups: ballistic, blunt,
and blast. Table 3-1 identifies their sources and lists potential 1There has been considerable research related to head and neck injuries
head injuries. As shown in Figure 3-1, these three categories over the past 40 years (McIntosh and McCrory, 2005; Fuller et al., 2005;
Xydakis et al., 2005; and Brolin et al., 2008). However, much of this work
is not applicable to high-impact-rate, low-momentum-transfer scenarios that
characterize ballistic impact (Bass et al., 2003).
15

TABLE 3-1 Broad Categories of Threats

Threats Sources Potential Head Injuries
Ballistic and fragment impacts on the Rifles, handguns, artillery, IEDs Penetrating trauma, behind-armor-blunt-trauma,
helmet BFD
Blunt: Impacts into ground, vehicles, Falls, vehicle crashes, blast events, and Closed and open head injuries, skull fracture,
buildings, etc. other potential sources hematomas, brain contusions
Blasts Bombs, artillery, IEDs Brain trauma, meningeal hematomas, contusions,
axonal injuries
NOTE: BFD, backface deformation; IED, improvised explosive device.
Peak Blast Overpressure Peak Force Peak Blunt Accel due to increased thoracic protection (e.g., Belmont et al.,
(> 3-100 ms) (~200 ms) (> 3,000-50,000 ms) 2010; Wood et al., 2012a). The relative success of thoracic
body armor likely contributes to the changes in proportion
Blast Impact of GSW wounding from previous conflicts to OEF/OIF
Ballistic Impact (Owens et al., 2008).
Blunt Impact For Iraq/Afghanistan, Table 3-5 shows that explosions
Ergonomics Hours, days, months, years are the primary source of injury across all body regions,
ranging from 88 percent for the head to 78 percent for the
thorax.
Time 200 ms 400 ms 800 ms 1000 ms Wojcik et al. (2010) found results comparable to Owens
et al. (2008) for hospitalizations for traumatic brain inju-
FIGURE 3-1 Typical timeline of blast, ballistic, blunt injuries ries (TBIs) from battlefield causes in OEF/OIF. About 22
compared to ergonomics-related injuries. percent of personnel had TBIs from all causes (Okie, 2005;
Figure 3-1, Warden, 2006; and U.S. Army Medical Surveillance Activ-
ity, 2007). For moderate to severe TBI, about 67 percent of
include those who died of wounds.2 Table 3-3 shows the loca- the injuries were attributable to explosions; of these, direct
tions and distributions of these wounds. The predominant blunt trauma contributed 11 to 13 percent and penetrating
location is extremity (54 percent), followed by the abdomen injuries contributed 11 to 16 percent (Figure 3-2a). Note,
(11 percent), face (10 percent), and head (8 percent).3 Data in however, that many of the injuries attributable to explosions
Owens et al. (2008) also show that the proportion of head and may have been the result of low-rate blunt trauma following
neck wounds in OEF/OIF is higher than those from WWII, blast events. Figure 3-2b shows that nearly half of the hos-
Korea, and Vietnam wars (16-21 percent). On the other hand, pitalizations for TBIs in OEF/OIF were noncombat injuries.
the proportion of thoracic wounds has decreased by about 50 Since helmets are often worn in noncombat scenarios, these
percent from those for WWII and Vietnam. figures emphasize the potential role for the combat helmet
Table 3-4 shows that explosions (blast and fragmenta- in protecting the head from nonbattle TBI from blunt trauma
tion threats) have been the major source of U.S. military and other causes.
wounding since WWII, ranging from 65 percent in Viet-
nam to more than 80 percent in OEF/OIF (DoD, 2004; The conclusions from these studies can be summarized
Owens et al., 2008; Wojcik et al., 2010). In addition, there as follows:
is almost a 50 percent reduction in direct gunshot wounds
(GSW) from Vietnam to OEF/OIF. This may largely be Finding 3-1.
• Historically, head injuries represent 15 to 30 percent
2Owens et al. (2008) noted: “Definitions significantly affect the results of
of all wounding by body region.
casualty analysis. . . . The inclusion of KIAs, RTDs, and NBIs in any cohort
• Wounding from an explosive source (including
analyzed will affect the distribution of wounds and mechanism of injury. fragmentation from bombs, mines, and artillery)
For example, the inclusion of KIAs in the cohort analyzed may result in an dominates injuries in all major modern conflicts since
increase in the number of head and chest wounds seen.” WWII.
3Owens et al. (2008) also reported that there were fluctuations in these
• With respect to blast and blunt trauma:
figures over time. For example, one of the studies cited there reported a
4-month period of casualties received at Walter Reed Army Medical Cen-
—In OEF/OIF, the proportion of blast-associated
ter, when they cared for 119 patients with 184 injuries. There were some head injuries (attributed to blast fragments) has
differences in the breakdowns: head and neck—16 percent, thorax—14 increased relative to gunshot wounds.
percent, abdomen—11 percent, upper extremity—20 percent, and lower —Nonbattle causes, including blunt traumatic inju-
extremity—40 percent. The distribution of the sources of these injuries was ries, produced nearly 50 percent of the hospital-
also different: 39 percent bullet, 34 percent blunt, and 31 percent explosion.
This was during the period of ground warfare and not counterinsurgency.
izations for TBI in OEF/OIF.

THREATS, HEAD INJURIES, AND TEST METHODOLOGIES 17
TABLE 3-2 Relative Body Surface Area and Distribution of Wounds by Body Region (in Percentage)
OEF (Afghanistan) and
Body Surface Area WWII Korea Vietnam OIF (Iraq)
Head and neck 12 21 21 16 30
Thorax 16 14 10 13 6
Abdomen 11 8 9 10 9
Extremities 61 58 60 61 55
NOTE: Based on injuries/treatments from hospitalizations, including personnel who died of wounds. OEF, Operation Enduring Force; OIF, Operation Iraqi
Freedom; WWII, World War II.
SOURCE: Owens et al. (2008).
TABLE 3-3 Distribution of Wounds by Body Region in TABLE 3-5 Distributions of Injury Causes by Body
Operation Enduring Force (Afghanistan) and Operation Region (in Percentage)
Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) Gunshot Explosion Motor Vehicle
Region Wounds Percent Wounds (%) (%) Collision (%)
Head 509 8 Head and Neck 8 88 4
Eyes 380 6 Thorax 19 78 3
Face 635 10 Abdomen 17 81 2
Ears 175 3 Extremity 17 81 2
Neck 207 3 SOURCE: Owens et al. (2008).
Thorax 376 6
Abdomen 709 11
Extremity 3,575 54
investigate the possibility of increasing blunt impact protec-
Total 6,609 100
tion of the combat helmet to reduce head injuries.
NOTE: Based on injuries/treatments from hospitalizations, including
personnel who died of wounds.
SOURCE: Owens et al. (2008). 3.3 THREATS
Bullets
TABLE 3-4 Percentage of Injuries from Gunshot Wounds
The presentation by the Chief Scientist, Soldier Protective
and Explosions from Previous U.S. Wars
and Individual Equipment,4 listed repeating pistols, such as
Conflict Gunshot Wounds (%) Explosion (%)
Tokarev (7.62×25-mm caliber) and Makarov (9×18-mm cali-
WWII 27 73 ber), as emerging threats. However, for insurgent and guer-
Korea 31 69 rilla warfare, published data and anecdotal evidence suggest
that AK-47 (7.62×39-mm) and other Kalashnikov-pattern
Vietnam 35 65
weapons are the predominant source of ballistic threats in
OIF or OEF 19 81 Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia (Small Arms Survey, 2012).
NOTE: OEF, Operation Enduring Force; OIF, Operation Iraqi Freedom; In a survey of 80,000 small arms and light weapons seizures,
WWII, World War II. they found that the “vast majority of illicit small arms in
SOURCE: Owens et al. (2008).
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia are Kalashnikov-pattern
assault rifles. Other types of small arms are comparatively
On the other hand, the Department of Defense helmet test- rare” (p. 6). These weapons and their ammunition are inex-
ing protocols—the subject of this report—focus mainly on pensive and widely available with continuing production and
protective capabilities against gunfire threats. large existing supplies (e.g., Small Arms Survey, 2012; Stohl
et al., 2007; Perry, 2004; Jones and Ness, 2012).
ensure that appropriate threats, in particular fragmentation
threats, from current and emerging threat profiles are used 4James Zheng, Chief Scientist, Soldier Protective and Individual Equip-
in testing. ment, PEO Soldier, U.S. Army, presentation to the committee, March 21,
2013.


FIGURE 3-2 (a) Traumatic brain injury (TBI) hospitalizations by source for battle injuries categorized by regions in Operation Enduring
Force/Operation Iraqi Freedom. (b) TBI hospitalizations by combat/noncombat source. NOTE: BSA, body surface area. SOURCE: Based
on data from Wojcik et al. (2010).
TABLE 3-6 Representative Standard-Issue Infantry Rifles and Ammunition for Selected Potential Adversaries
Country Type Bullet (mm) Use Typical Muzzle Velocity (m/s)
China Type 56 7.62 × 39 1956-present 790-930
Type 81 7.62 × 39 1981-present 750
QBZ-95 5.8 × 42 1995-present 735
QBZ-97 5.56 × 45 1995-present
Iran M1 Garand 7.62 × 63 1950s-present 850
HK G3A6 7.62 × 51 1980-present 800
S-5.56 5.56 × 45 990
North Korea Type 58 7.62 × 39 1958-present 715
Type 68 7.62 × 39 1968-present 900
Type 88 5.45 × 39 1988-present 900
Russia AKM 7.62 × 39 1959-present 715
AK-74 5.45 × 39 1974-present 900
AK-74M 5.45 × 39 1991-present 900
SOURCE: Jones and Ness (2012).
Infantry small arms of potential major adversaries includ- Finding 3-2. Small arms surveys and deployed infantry
ing China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have two pre- weapons from major adversaries suggest that 5.56-mm and
dominant calibers (Jones and Ness, 2012). Reserve forces 7.62-mm rounds at muzzle velocities from 735 m/s to more
are often issued older types of 7.62×39-mm Kalashnikov- than 800 m/s are the current predominant ballistic threats.
pattern weapons. These have more recently transitioned to
5.45×39-mm or 5.56×45-mm (China) types. Muzzle veloci-
Fragmentation
ties of these types range from 715 m/s to 990 m/s (Jones and
Ness, 2012). Realistic threat profiles, however, may involve As discussed earlier, fragmenting weapons, including
velocity at typical engagement ranges rather than muzzle artillery, mines, mortars, and other sources of explosions, are
velocities. Available bullet types range from copper-jacketed the principal source of wounding on the modern battlefield.
lead core bullets through armor-piercing incendiary bullets These weapons, including improvised explosive devices
including high explosive fills. Table 3-6 lists the bullets that (IEDs), have a multitude of fills/wounding mechanisms.
are potential threats to U.S. forces. They also have a spatial distribution of fragments that them-
selves vary by sizes/mass and initial velocities. The relative

risk fragments of each velocity and mass should be included impact to the head. In addition, many blast events likely
in the threat profile for testing. involve blunt trauma (Bass et al., 2012).
However, there is limited published data for arena tests5 Blunt trauma threats may be rated as a function of the
for principal artillery and fragmentation threats. Much of the change in velocity (often reproduced by drop-testing), as
extensive work is classified. Nevertheless, several studies shown in Table 3-7. General threats range from approxi-
allow order-of-magnitude analyses for this class of weapon, mately 14 ft/sec for half height falls (falls from 3 ft) to more
based on mass, and velocity information from typical 105- than 50 ft/sec for typical vehicle crashes at 35 mph. For
mm and 155-mm howitzer shells (e.g., ATEC, 1983; Dehn, comparison, the current ACH purchase description specifies
1980; Ramsey et al., 1978; AMC, 1964). A review of these a particular acceleration limit (150 g) for a 10 ft/sec drop,
studies leads to the following findings. far smaller than typical threat velocities.
A recent study of TBI from conflicts in OEF/OIF by
Finding 3-3. Results in the open literature indicate that Wojcik et al. (2010) found that about 15 percent of the
the fragment test velocities used in Advanced Combat hospitalizations were associated with direct blunt trauma, a
Helmet specification are representative of initial fragment figure that is similar to ballistic penetrating injury. Further, it
velocities from 155-mm artillery shells under high explosive is likely that many of the head injuries associated with blast
detonation. (about 50 to 60 percent of the cases) were also attributable to
low-rate blunt trauma from direct or subsequent contact with
Finding 3-4. Results in the open literature show that frag- vehicle interiors, the ground, and so on. For these injuries,
ment masses in the ACH specification are generally rep- Wojcik et al. (2010) found that almost 80 percent of person-
resentative fragment masses from 155-mm artillery shells nel were wearing a helmet during the incident. It is unclear
under high explosive detonation. However, there is a range how much the presence of the helmet mitigates or moderates
of fragment masses between 100-grain6 and 200-grain from potential injury, but there is substantial injury exposure even
artillery shells that have no counterpart in ACH testing. with current combat helmet use.
Data on blunt trauma injuries from more than 120,000
Finding 3-5. IEDs may have dramatically different distribu- parachute jumps during 1941 to 1998 show that blunt trauma
tions of fragment size and velocity compared to other frag- injury rates were approximately 8 per 1,000 drops (Bricknell
menting weapons such as mortars and artillery. The current and Craig, 1999). Bricknell and Craig (1999) reported that
ACH threat profile used in testing was selected before the head injuries were 4 to19 percent of the total injuries across
emergence of widespread IED use. a range of studies. A more recent study (Knapik et al., 2011)
showed that blunt trauma to the head comprised 30 percent
Recommendation 3-3. The Department of Defense should of the total injuries, which is quite large. Overall hospitaliza-
reassess helmet requirements for current and potential tion rates for TBI in OIF were estimated to be 0.31 percent
future fragmentation threats, especially for fragments ener- (Wojcik et al., 2010).
gized by blast and for ballistic threats. The reassessment U.S. drop-qualified personnel are required to make 4
should examine redundancy among design threats, such as jumps/year to retain their jump status (Knapik et al., 2010),
the 2-grain versus the 4-grain and the 16-grain versus the and many active personnel make 10-15 or more jumps per
17-grain. Elimination of tests found to be redundant may year (Knapik et al., 2003, 2010). For exposure over a 10-year
allow resources to be directed at a wider diversity of realistic career, airborne personnel may have career head injury risk
ballistic threats, including larger mass artillery fragments, ranging from 10 percent for 4 jumps per year to 34 percent
bullets other than the 9-mm, and improvised explosive device
fragments. This effort should also examine the effects of
shape, mass, and other parameters of current fragmentation
threats and differentiate these from important characteristics TABLE 3-7 Representative Battlefield Threats/Impact
of design ballistic threats. Velocities
Impact Velocity
Blunt Trauma Threat m/s (ft/sec)
Fall—half height (3 ft) 4.3 (14)
Blunt trauma threats on the battlefield are ubiquitous and
include falls, vehicle crashes, impact with vehicle interiors, Fall—full height (6 ft) 6 (20)
impact from parachute drops, and other sources of blunt Parachute drop (e.g,. McEntire, 2005) 5.2-6.4 (17-21)
Motor vehicle crash—unrestrained occupant 3-15.2 (10-50)
5Arena tests are standard tests of artillery shells in which fragment num-
ber, fragment, and velocity spatial distribution are assessed using high speed Motorcycle helmet standards (e.g., FMVSS-218) 5.2-6 (17-20)
video and nondestructive capture mechanisms. Current ACH threat 3 (10)
6The grain (gr) is a commonly used unit of measure of the mass of bullets.
There are 0.0648 grams per grain. NOTE: ACH, Advanced Combat Helmet.

for 15 jumps per year. Thus, there is a great potential for similar diameters. Based on the earlier threat analyses, the
blunt injury from this threat. committee focuses mainly on military rifle rounds.
Two primary measures are used to assess the performance
Finding 3-6. Common blunt trauma threats have impact of helmets: penetration and backface deformation (BFD).
velocities of 6.1 m/s (20 ft/s) that are equivalent to drops of (They are formally defined in Chapter 5.) Briefly, a penetra-
190 cm (75 inches). On the other hand, current blunt trauma tion occurs if the ballistic impact causes a projectile to pass
threats assessed for the ACH helmet have impact velocities though the helmet shell. BFD is a measure of the deformation
of 3.1 m/s (10 ft/s) which are equivalent to drops of 47 cm on the helmet from impact to the head.
(18.6 inches). The earliest published standard for assessment of pen-
etration with ballistic protective helmets was developed by
the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Law
Primary Blast
Enforcement Standards Laboratory (National Institute of
There is limited information on the effect of primary Justice (NIJ) Standard-0106.01–NIJ-1981). This standard
blast on the head (Bass et al., 2012). TBI associated with specifies inertial impact and penetration assessments for
blast exposure in OEF/OIF is estimated at up to 20 percent ballistic helmets. Testing of penetration resistance in this
of deployed service personnel (e.g., Tanielian and Jaycox, standard uses a fixed headform with witness panels located
2008; Ling et al., 2009). The current helmet is not designed in the mid-coronal plane for a sagittal shot (Figure 3-3) or
with considerations for primary blast, but there is substantial mid-sagittal planes for a coronal shot. (See Chapter 4 for
experimental evidence that the ACH helmet is protective more details.)
against primary blast for most direct exposures (Shridharani The current ACH standard modifies this NIJ headform to
et al., 2012). Further, computational models of the human provide deformation resistance using the clay (Roma Plasti-
head/helmet system show that helmets with padding do not lina No. 1) used to certify ballistic vests. The empty spaces of
exacerbate blast exposure for a range of conditions (Panzer the headform are filled with clay, and the permanent plastic
et al., 2010; Panzer and Bass, 2012; Nyein et al., 2010). But backface deformation of the helmet into the clay is recorded
it is not clear if primary blasts are an important source of as a BFD measurement. Since the head does not undergo
wounding. Data presented to the committee7 indicated that plastic deformation in the same manner as the clay, this pro-
more than 1,500 of the 1,922 reported wounded-in-action cedure has no biomechanical basis (NRC, 2012).
incidents produced mild or moderate concussions. However,
it is not known if the source of these concussions was primary Finding 3-8. The mechanical response of clay is qualitatively
blasts or falls/tertiary blasts. different from the response of the human head/skull, which
may affect both the penetration and backface deformation
Finding 3-7. Epidemiological data, experimental results, and response of the helmet.
computational models suggest that the ACH helmet does not
exacerbate blast exposure.
3.4 ADVANCED COMBAT HELMET TEST

METHODOLOGY AND LINKS TO BIOMECHANICS
This section outlines the typical characteristics of each
injury type and elucidates the biomechanical basis for pen-
etration and behind-armor blunt trauma assessments.
Penetrating Trauma
Modern ballistic wounding is generally differentiated
between rifle and handgun rounds by velocity. For example,
high-velocity tumbling rounds such as typical 5.56-mm
projectiles (800 m/s or above muzzle velocity) have qualita-
tively different wounding behavior than .22 caliber handgun
ammunition (~330 m/s muzzle velocity), although they have
FIGURE 3-3 Sagittal headform specified in National Institute of
Justice Penetration Standard, based on the Department of Trans-
portation blunt impact headform. Two similar headforms are used
7Natalie Eberius, Predictive Analysis Team Leader, Army Research
for the helmet tests: A modified version of this headform provides
the basis
Figure 3-3,for the advanced combat helmet backface deformation and
fixed
Laboratory, “Blast Injury Research” presentation to the committee, April
25, 2013.
penetration tests. SOURCE: NIJ (1981).

Clay has been used to assess BFD in military helmets for

the past decade.8 However, there is no existing study link-
ing clay deformation to head injury. For ballistic vests and
body armor, Prather et al. (1977) linked backface response
to abdominal injury in goats, and by inference to humans
by an indirect process. There is no corresponding study for
the head. Even then, the biomechanics are likely inappropri-
ate for humans. For example, transient deformation of the
abdomen (and by extension the clay) is much larger than the
typical deformation to failure from a skin or skull system.
Finding 3-9.
• Prather et al. (1977) is the basis for use of clay to
assess BFD injuries. This study linked abdomi-
FIGURE 3-4 Long linear and depressed skull fractures from non- nal response behind deforming soft body armor
penetrating helmet BFD in a human cadaveric model. SOURCE: with abdominal injury in goats through an indirect
Bass et al. (2003). process.
Figure 3-4
• There is no biomechanical link between the BFD
assessment in the current test methodology and head
Modern protective helmet materials (McManus, 1976; injuries from behind helmet deformation.
Carey et al., 2000) may deform sufficiently for the backface
of the helmet to make contact with the head, potentially Recommendation 3-4. The Department of Defense should
causing head injuries (e.g., Mayorga et al., 2010; Bass et al., vigorously pursue efforts to provide a biomedical basis for
2002, 2003). Possible injuries include both depressed and assessing the risk of helmet backface injuries.
long linear skull fractures (Figure 3-4) and other closed-head
brain trauma. Owing to the localization from ballistic impact, Head and neck injuries have been the focus of much
it is unclear that there is a relationship between low-rate research in the past 40 years (e.g., McIntosh and McCrory,
injuries from blunt trauma and potential injuries from BFD. 2005; Fuller et al., 2005; Xydakis et al., 2005; Brolin et al.,
The injuries may occur either from the deforming of the 2008). This work, however, is not necessarily applicable to
undefeated helmet locally onto the head or underlying skull the high-impact-rate, low-momentum-transfer scenarios that
or from acceleration loads transmitted through the helmet characterize ballistic impact (e.g., Bass et al., 2003).
padding to the head (Bass et al., 2003; Mayorga et al., 2010). For BFD scenarios or scenarios in which the bullet
The Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Devel- remains in the helmet, there is a potential for neck inju-
opment (AGARD, 1996) references 29 standards for blunt ries. Such neck injuries are generally associated with large
impact assessment, all of which have a similar underlying momentum input or resulting velocity changes from impact
basis: the head acts as a rigid body (Bass et al., 2003), and (e.g., see Bass et al., 2006). Increased helmet mass will tend
head injury of any type is associated with skull fracture to delay and decrease neck forces and may mitigate the
(Versace, 1971; Hodgson and Thomas, 1973; Bass et al., potential for injury. A number of neck injuries are possible
2003). Recent work by Viano demonstrates poor association from head motion following momentum transfer from the
between skull fracture and brain injury (Viano, 1988). bullet to the helmet. These include ligamentous injuries (such
There are a few studies of head injury that arises from as strains, tears, or distractions), tensile failure in interver-
BFD (e.g., Sarron et al., 2000; Bass et al., 2003). Bass et al. tebral endplates or vertebral bodies, or other injuries to the
(2003) developed injury criteria for skull fracture and brain osteoligamentous spine (Figure 3-5).
injury in human cadaveric heads during ballistic loading of Because neck motion following ballistic impact follows
a protective helmet. These tests used ultrahigh-molecular- a timescale comparable to neck motion from vehicle crashes
weight polyethylene helmets with 9-mm full metal jacket or falls, automobile criteria are likely appropriate. Current
(FMJ) test rounds under various impact velocities to 460 or future helmet ballistic threats have quite low momentum
m/s (1,510 ft/s). Measurements taken from cadavers with transfer to the head, resulting in quite low injury risk (NRC,
and without skull fracture show no association with existing 2012). For example, direct measurements have been made
blunt trauma injury models. Further, there was no obvious of the neck loads following helmet ballistic impact using
association of any acceleration-based response with the a 9-mm FMJ round over a range of velocities for human
occurrence of BFD fracture. Skull force-based injury criteria
are available from Bass et al. (2012), which may be useful in 8James Zheng, Chief Scientist, Soldier Protective and Individual Equip-
future test methodologies. ment, PEO Soldier, U.S. Army, presentation to the committee, March 21,
2013.

Contusion
Rupture
15-20 mm
Bridging Vein
*d/dt=45 s-1
10-30 mm slip
=0.25
Tentorium Rupture Brain
Motion Impact
15-25 mm
displacement
Diffuse
Concussion/Coma
Axonal Injury
*d/dt=45 s-1
Complex strain
=0.25 pattern
(100-200 g’s)
FIGURE 3-5 Typical potential neck injury locations in adults from
impact loading. SOURCE: Courtesy of Dale Bass, Duke University.
Figure 3-5 fixed

FIGURE 3-6 Typical blunt brain trauma diagram. SOURCE: Based
cadaver tests. Both the NIJ and beam9
injury assessment on Ommaya et al. (1994).
values indicate very low risk of neck injuries (<0.1 percent)
for these scenarios, and no neck injuries were seen in test-
ing. By extension, injury risk through 7.62×54-mm rounds
80 g has been suggested recently to protect against changes
and beyond to muzzle velocities is low. There is, however,
in mentation (cf. Duma et al., 2005). Impact energy limits
the potential for neck trauma from blunt impact to the head.
from these standards are shown in Figure 3-7.
Improved helmet blunt impact characteristics may reduce the
Other potential assessment techniques include the ACH
risk of neck injury from blunt trauma.
standard (CO/PD-05-04), which is based on the motorcycle
helmet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard–218 (49 CFR
Finding 3-10. The risk of neck injuries from momentum
Sec 571.218); the National Operating Committee on Stan-
transfer from ballistic impact of a nonpenetrating round
dards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE); and standards that
or fragment on the helmet is low for current and near-term
incorporate the International Standards Organization (ISO)
future threats up to the 7.62×54-mm rounds at muzzle
headforms. Recent developments include the star rating
velocity.
system for football helmets from the Virginia Polytechnic
and State University (Rowson and Duma, 2011). The current
Blunt Trauma ACH blunt impact test assessment (CO/PD-05-04) restricts
peak acceleration to a U.S. Department of Transportation
Typical blunt trauma head injuries include skull fractures,
(DOT) headform fitted in the ACH to less than 150 g given a
hematomas and contusions, and diffuse axonal injuries (e.g.,
headform impact velocity of 3 m/s (10 fps). At approximately
Ommaya et al., 1994). Many tentative mechanical injury tol-
45 J drop energy, the ACH blunt impact assessment is quali-
erances have been established for particular injuries (Figure
tatively different from many typical blunt threats experienced
3-6), and blunt trauma injury criteria have been promulgated
by service personnel.
for protective helmets (e.g., AGARD, 1996).
Head protection from blunt impact in vehicles and sports
has advanced substantially over the past 30 years. Wide-
spread use of protective helmets has reduced severity and
frequency of head injuries. Many of the improvements in
helmet technology have arisen from standardized test meth-
odologies based on blunt impact injury criteria. Twenty-nine
blunt impact test standards are included in AGARD AR-330
(AGARD, 1996), and the basis for each of these standards is
some type of impact acceleration limit. Nineteen have accel-
eration or force limits alone, and ten use acceleration/dura-
tion levels. Acceleration levels specified in these standards
vary from 150 g to 400 g, but a standard of approximately
9Beam is a neck injury criterion that was developed to assess the risk of
neck injury from impacts, including the effect of helmets/night vision and FIGURE 3-7 Energy limits for blunt impact injury assessment in
other head-supported mass (Bass et al., 2006). AGARD AR-330. SOURCE: Based on data from AGARD (1996).
Figure 3-7 fixed

Bass, C.R., M. Bolduc, and S. Waclawik. 2002. Development of a nonpen-

Finding 3-11. Numerous established test methodologies are etrating, 9-mm, ballistic trauma test method. Pp. 18-22 in Proceedings
of the Personal Armor Systems Symposium (PASS 2002), The Hague,
available for assessment of blunt trauma injury with helmets, Netherlands, November 18-22, 2002. Prins Maurits Laboratorium, Rose
including supporting injury reference values. International Exhibition Management and Congress Consultancy, The
Hague, Netherlands.
Recommendation 3-5. Whether or not advanced combat Bass, C.R., B. Boggess, B. Bush, M. Davis, R. Harris, M.R. Rountree,
helmet design standards are improved to reflect more realistic S. Campman, J. Ecklund, W. Monacci, G. Ling, G. Holborow, E.
Sanderson, and S. Waclawik. 2003. “Helmet Behind Armor Blunt
blunt trauma threats, the current testing protocols should be Trauma.” Paper presented at the RTO Applied Vehicle Technology Panel/
revised to more fully reflect common blunt trauma threats Human Factors and Medicine Panel Joint Specialists’ Meeting held in
that are prevalent in training and on the battlefield. Koblenz, Germany, May 19-23, 2003. NATO Science and Technology
Organization, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.
Bass, C.R., L. Donnellan, R.S. Salzar, S. Lucas, B. Folk, M. Davis, K.A.
Primary Blast Rafaels, C. Planchak, K. Meyerhoff, A. Ziemba, and N. Alem. 2006. A
New Neck Injury Criterion in Combined Vertical/Frontal Crashes with
Models based on animals show that exposure of the iso- Head Supported Mass. Madrid, Spain: International Research Council
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Rafaels et al., 2011, 2012). The injuries include menin- Brain injuries from blast. Annals of Biomedical Engineering 40(1):185-
202.
geal bleeding, skull fractures, axonal injuries, and gliosis. Bell, M.K. 2008. Standardized model is needed to study the neurological
However, there are still uncertainties about the relationship effects of primary blast wave exposure. Military Medicine 173(6): v-viii.
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TBI during military service (e.g., Bell, 2008). For severe TBI combat wounds in operation Iraqi freedom and operation enduring free-
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Agency, Fort Belvoir, Va. Wood, G.W., M.B. Panzer, and C.R. Bass. 2012b. Scaling in blast neu-
Prather, R., C. Swann, and C. Hawkin. 1977. Backface Signatures of Soft rotrauma. International Workshop on Human Subject’s for Biome-
Body Armors and Associated Trauma Effects. ARCSL-TR-77055. chanical Research. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
Edgewood Arsenal, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. Washington, D.C.
Xydakis, M.S., M.D. Fravell, K.E. Nasser, and J.D. Casler. 2005. Analy-
sis of battlefield head and neck injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery 133(4):497-504.

Combat Helmet Testing
4.0 SUMMARY The goal of testing is to determine if the helmet is of

acceptable quality based on a limited test sample. Not every
This chapter describes how combat helmets are tested. It
helmet can be tested because the tested helmet is damaged
includes a brief summary of the testing process, a description
in the testing process. Hence, decisions about the larger col-
of the test threats, and a discussion of the various sources of
lection of helmets must be based on a limited test sample.
variation in the testing process.
Because only a sample of helmets can be tested, the resulting
test conclusion is subject to uncertainty and unavoidable risks
4.1 INTRODUCTION to both the Department of Defense and the manufacturer. Test
protocol design requires making trade-offs between risks
Federal government departments and agencies are required
for both groups. The size of the risk for each group arises
to “develop and manage a systematic, cost-effective govern-
because of the test design and any limitation on resources.
ment contract quality assurance program to ensure that
contract performance conforms to specified requirements”
(Title 48 of the Code of Federal Regulations, subpart 246.1) 4.2 BALLISTIC TESTING METHODOLOGY
(CFR, 2013). In particular, first article testing (FAT)1 is con-
The helmet ballistic testing methodology has been derived
ducted to ensure that “the contractor can furnish a product
from existing body armor testing methods. The methodology
that conforms to all contract requirements for acceptance”
for ballistic testing for body armor follows from testing done
(FAR, 2013). Once a contractor has passed FAT and begins
in the late 1970s by Prather et al. (1977) that, however tenu-
production, lot acceptance tests (LAT)2 are used to assess
ously, connects the current body armor methods and the test
whether combat helmets continue to conform to contract
measures to some evidence of injury (NRC, 2010, 2012). For
requirements during regular production.
combat helmets, however, the current testing methods and
As part of FAT and LAT, combat helmets are subjected
measures have no connection to research on head and brain
to a series of ballistic and nonballistic tests. Ballistic tests
injury. The lack of connection between injury and current test
assess the helmet’s ability to prevent penetration and limit
methods and measures is a significant concern.
helmet deformation to a given threshold. Nonballistic tests
assess other helmet capabilities, including impact resistance,
pad compression durability, coating adhesion durability, Test Processes
and helmet compression resistance testing. Helmets are
During a test, the helmet being tested is affixed to a
also subjected to a series of inspections, such as whether
headform packed with modeling clay, and a rifle-like device
the shell dimensions meet those specified in the purchase
is used to fire various projectiles into the helmet. The clay
description. All of these tests and inspections are intended to
is used as a recording medium for: (1) assessing penetration
assess whether a particular manufacturer’s product conforms
should the projectile or portions thereof pass through the
to the government’s contract specifications as outlined in the
helmet into the clay, and (2) measuring the deformation of
purchase description (U.S. Army, 2012).
the helmet, where an impression is left in the clay surface
as a result of the ballistic impact pushing the helmet into the
1The current DOT&E protocol for combat helmet first article testing is clay. Electronic instrumentation is used to measure projectile
reprinted in Appendix B. velocity before impact. Appendix E describes the ballistic
2The current DOT&E protocol for combat helmet lot acceptance testing
is reprinted in Appendix B.
testing process in more detail.
25

TABLE 4-1 DOT&E First Article Testing Helmet Test Matrix for the Advanced Combat Helmet
V50 Ambient Hot Cold Seawater Weatherometer Accelerated Aging
2-grain 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50
Size: Small Size: Medium Size: Large Size: XL
4-grain 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50
Size: XL Size: Small Size: Medium Size: Large
16-grain 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50
Size: Large Size: XL Size: Small Size: Medium
17-grain 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50
Size: Medium Size: Large Size: XL Size: Small Size: Large Size: Medium
64-grain 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50
Size: Large Size: XL Size: Medium Size: Small
Small arms 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50 1 V50
Size: Medium Size: Small Size: XL Size: Large Size: Medium
9-mm RTP/BTD 60 shots 60 shots 60 shots 60 shots
shell 12 helmets 12 helmets 12 helmets 12 helmets
Sizes: Sizes: Sizes: Sizes:
Small: 3 Small: 3 Small: 3 Small: 3
Medium: 3 Medium: 3 Medium: 3 Medium: 3
Large: 3 Large: 3 Large: 3 Large: 3
XL: 3 XL: 3 XL: 3 XL: 3
9-mm RTP 17 shots 16 shots 16 shots 16 shots
hardware 9 helmets 8 helmets 8 helmets 8 helmets
XL: 2 XL: 2 XL: 2 XL: 2
Small arms RTP 17 shots 16 shots 16 shots 16 shots
17 helmets 16 helmets 16 helmets 16 helmets
XL: 4 XL: 4 XL: 4 XL: 4
NOTE: BTD, ballistic transient deformation; RTP, resistance to penetration; V 50, velocity at which the probability of penetration is 0.5; XL, extra large.
SOURCE: DOT&E (2011).
There are two types of measurements that are made on the For FAT, as shown in Table 4-1, 48 helmet shells are
tested helmet: (1) whether the bullet penetrates the helmet or tested against the Remington 9-mm threat, and 35 helmets
not (called resistance to penetration [RTP]); and (2) if there are tested for hardware. Another 65 helmets may be tested
is no penetration, a surrogate measure of the deformation of against a small arms threat (which is classified). In addition,
the helmet referred to as the backface deformation (BFD). 27 helmets are tested for V50. Table 4-1 specifies both the
These measures are formally defined in Chapter 5. size of the helmet (small, medium, large, and extra large)
Per the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation and whether the helmet is exposed to a particular environ-
(DOT&E) protocol, the test is conducted as a sequence of ment, such as ambient, hot, cold, seawater,3 weatherometer
five ballistic impacts: one each to the front, rear, left, and (accelerated test to mimic long-term exposure to weather),
right sides of the helmet and to the helmet crown. Both pen- and other types of accelerated aging. Under the DOT&E
etration and BFD, a measure of the indent in the clay caused protocol, within each set of tests (shell, hardware, and small
by the ballistic forces from the bullet, are measured. Current
protocol also tests the V50 ballistic limit using a series of 6 to 3The helmets the Army procures are used DoD wide, including both the
14 shots to the five regions of the helmet at varying velocities Navy and the Coast Guard. Soldiers wearing helmets may also find them-
per MIL-STD-622F (DoD, 1987). (See Chapter 9 for further selves in a maritime environment while on Navy support troop-carrying
discussion of the methodology for estimating V50.) vessels. The purpose of testing helmets that have been conditioned by
seawater is to determine if the helmet material can withstand exposure in
that environment without degraded ballistic performance.

COMBAT HELMET TESTING 27
arms), the results are combined across the helmet sizes and it may be tested against an unspecified small arms threat.5
environments to assess whether FAT is passed or failed. The The helmet is also tested for V50, the velocity at which the
details are described in Chapters 5 and 6. helmet is equally likely to stop or not stop an object, such
The current DOT&E testing methodology is based on a as the following:
number of assumptions, including the following:
• 2-grain right-circular-cylinder (RCC) fragment,
• Shots are independent. In FAT and LAT each helmet • 4-grain RCC fragment,
is shot five times in five separate locations. The • 16-grain RCC fragment,
resulting analyses treat these shots as independent, • 64-grain RCC fragment, and,
combining all the shots across the helmets to assess • 17-grain fragment simulating projectile (FSP)
RTP performance. This practice minimizes the num- (DOT&E, 2011).6
ber of helmets tested so that, to the extent that RTP
failure is a rare, helmet-level event, this practice The ACH purchase description further specifies minimum
decreases the chances of selecting a defective helmet V50 velocities for the above RCC and FSP test projectiles
to test. That said, to the extent that the shots are truly (U.S. Army, 2012, p. 13).
independent this is appropriate. On the other hand, to As discussed in Chapter 3, there are three general cat-
the extent that they are not, this practice introduces egories of head injury threats: ballistic/fragmentation threats
a bias in favor of soldier safety because helmets are from rapidly moving bullets or fragments; blunt threats from
stressed beyond what is likely to occur in the field. impact into vehicle interiors, the ground, large slow frag-
• Helmet performance is equivalent across testing ments, or other sources of head impact; and blast threats
environments. In FAT, helmets are exposed to vari- from bombs, artillery, improvised explosive devices, and
ous environments that include temperature extremes other explosive sources. Blast and fragmentation threats
and other potential helmet stressors. The goal in from explosions historically have been the source of a large
such testing is to ensure that the helmets perform majority of U.S. military wounding, while direct gunshot
up to specifications in a variety of environments. wounds have decreased 46 percent relative to injuries with an
Because the helmets exposed to these environments explosive source between Vietnam and Operation Enduring
respond differently to either RTP or BFD, combin- Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
ing the results across all the helmets is not precisely For the DOT&E LAT protocol, the shell and hardware are
statistically correct. However, given the relatively required only to be tested against the Remington 9-mm, 124-
small observed differences between environmental grain FMJ projectile (DOT&E, 2012). The ACH purchase
conditions, it does not appear that this is likely a description further requires V50 testing for the 17-grain FSP
major contributor to variability. (U.S. Army, 2012).
• Data from predefined test locations sufficiently char-
acterizes overall helmet performance. As described
4.3 SOURCES OF TEST VARIATION
in Appendix E, helmets are tested in five precise
locations, and thus it is implicitly assumed that the Variation in test measurement is an unavoidable part of
results from these five locations adequately describe testing. In the ideal testing process, all observed variation in
the performance of the helmet overall. From a pro- test measures is related directly and perfectly to the items
cess variation perspective, this approach potentially being tested. In industrial quality control parlance, this is
helps minimize testing variation. However, by defini- referred to as “part-to-part” variation. However, in the real
tion, it also means that not all parts of the helmet are world, the testing process itself also introduces variation into
tested, some of which are known to be weaker. For the test measurements. In terms of assessing the quality of
example, the edges of the helmet are not tested, nor an item, this is the “noise” in the testing process. The goal of
are the raised areas of the helmet around the ears. As a good testing process is to minimize these process-related
such, the performance of the helmet in these regions sources of noise. The National Research Council Phase I
is simply not observed during FAT and LAT.4 report (NRC, 2009, p. 12) noted that the “measurement
system variance required for a test should be a factor of 10
or better than the total measured variation,” in order to have
Test Threat Projectiles
confidence that differences in the observed measurements
For FAT, the helmet shell and hardware are tested against predominantly represent part-to-part (i.e., helmet-to-helmet)
a Remington 9-mm, 124-grain full-metal-jacket (FMJ) differences.
projectile (DOT&E, 2011), and per the DOT&E protocol,
5Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen Test Center, “Helmet IOP
PED-003 Briefing to NRC Helmet Protocols Committee,” presentation to
4See Chapter 9 for a discussion of assessing helmet performance at other the committee on March 22, 2013.
locations during characterization testing. 6Ibid.

Helmet-to-helmet variability includes both variation the test process as the clay cools, and this can affect
within and between helmet manufacturers. There are a BFD.
number of additional sources of variation in the current test • Impact location variability arises to the extent that
process, including the following: different locations on the helmet respond to the bal-
listic impacts differently and/or if the order in which
• Gauge-to-gauge (measurement) variability, which the locations are shot affects the test outcome.
arises when there are accuracy or precision differ- • Environmental testing variability arises when the
ences within or between the gauges used to measure various environmental conditions to which some of
helmet performance. For helmet testing, the issue of the helmets are exposed (high and low temperature,
gauge-to-gauge variation is largely associated with seawater, etc.) differentially affect the RTP and BFD
the laser used to measure BFD, although it may performance of the helmets, and yet the helmets are
also arise in other test-range measures such as those combined together for analysis.
related to measuring projectile velocity, yaw, and
obliquity. The current testing process seeks to control many of
• Operator-to-operator variability, which arises when these sources of variation via the use of standardized testing
the individuals conducting the test either execute procedures, accurate measurement instrumentation, and the
the test differently or interpret test or measurement like. To the extent physically, analytically, and economically
outcomes differently (or both). For helmet testing, possible, the more these sources of variation are controlled
because V0 RTP testing is assessed visually, the the easier it is to distinguish signal (i.e., differences in hel-
operator is the “gauge,” and thus the two types of met performance) from noise (i.e., variation in the testing
variation are synonymous in this particular case. process).
• Lab-to-lab variability arises when different laborato- Of course, testing costs time and money, and there are
ries conduct helmet ballistic testing. Currently, only diminishing returns (and often increasing costs) in the pursuit
the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center (ATC) conducts of increasingly precise test measurements. Furthermore, the
helmet testing, so this type of variation is not appli- required level of measurement precision should be linked
cable at this time, but it could be in the future. to and driven by the overall variation in the testing process
• Environmental conditions variability arises to the where, for example, excessively precise measurements add
extent that the testing is dependent on environmental little value to a testing process that is itself inherently highly
conditions such as ambient test range temperature variable. Conversely, in any testing process, there should
and humidity. Although the current ATC test is con- be a precision threshold that any measurement device must
ducted in a temperature- and humidity-controlled test meet—again based on the overall variation of the testing
range, the temperature and humidity can still vary process—to ensure that the measurement process itself does
within specified constraints around nominal values. not add excessive variability to the test (NRC, 2012). As
• Projectile velocity and impact variability arise from noted earlier, the previous NRC body armor reports recom-
variation in individual shots. Much of this variability mend that variance attributable to the test measurement
is controlled via the criteria that fair shots must be process should be less than one-tenth of the total measured
within certain constraints on velocity, obliquity, yaw, variation (see NRC, 2009, p. 12; NRC, 2012, Appendix G;
and location, but, as with the environmental condi- McNeese and Klein, 1991).
tions, some residual variation remains within the
range of the specified constraints. Finding 4-1. Some sources of test variation are relevant to
• Test item configuration variability could arise in V0 the current helmet testing process while others are not. For
helmet testing if helmet pads and other hardware example, given that tests are currently conducted only at
differ if, for example, the helmet pads are installed ATC, lab-to-lab variability is not currently applicable. Simi-
in different configurations or if the construction or larly, some sources of variation are directly observable with
make-up of the pads themselves differs. existing data, and some are not. For example, as discussed in
• Helmet-to-headform stand-off variability arises when Chapter 5, the test data show clear helmet size effects, impact
one headform size is used to test multiple sizes of location effects, and minor environmental effects.
helmets. This can result in differential stand-off dis-
tances by helmet size, which can affect BFD. Finding 4-2. In the absence of more formal gauge repeat-
• Clay variability arises because the clay formulation ability and reproducibility (R&R) studies, as well as other
has changed over time and, as a result of this, the clay experimental studies, it is generally not possible to estimate
now has to be heated in order to achieve historical the variation attributed to helmets that actually arises from
rheological properties. However, because the clay is the other sources of variation listed above, such as the clay,
now heated, its properties change over time during operators, and the laser.

The NRC Phase III report on body armor noted the need
for a formal gauge R&R study to determine the sources and
magnitudes of variation in the test process (NRC, 2012,
p. 10). To the best of the committee’s knowledge, such a
study has not been done.

conduct a formal gauge repeatability and reproducibility
study to determine the magnitudes of the sources of test
variation, particularly the relative contributions of the vari-
ous sources from the testing methodology versus the varia-
tion inherent in the helmets. The Army and the Office of the
Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, should use the
results of the gauge repeatability and reproducibility study to
make informed decisions about whether and how to improve FIGURE 4-1 Clay time and temperature effects in the column
the testing process. drop test. Each line represents the results of repeated column drop
tests on a Figure 4-1 clay
standard fixedbox, each of which was subject to different
environmental conditioning. Measurements were taken at times 3,
4.4 ADDITIONAL MEASUREMENT AND TESTING 18, 33, and 48, and the lines on the graph are linear interpolations
ISSUES between the observed results at those time points. The graph shows
Without delving into the specific details of the DOT&E that the depth of penetration systematically decreases over time as
FAT and LAT protocols here (see Chapters 5-7), there are the clay cools. (See Appendix E for a description of the column
drop test.) SOURCE: NRC (2010).
two additional BFD measurement and testing issues of note:
the use of clay as a BFD recording medium, and headform
impacts on the measurement of BFD.
Headforms
Clay as a Recording Medium Army helmet testing is currently based on the ATC
headform—derived from the National Institute of Justice
As described in the Phase III report (NRC, 2012), there
headform discussed in Chapter 3—with slots in the coro-
is not much that is known about the use of clay as an impact
nal and midsagittal directions (Figure 4-2). As more fully
recording medium, including how accurately it records the
described in Appendix E, the slots in the headform are
backface signature of an impact and how much variation it
packed with clay as the recording medium for both penetra-
adds to the testing process. Thus it is unclear if the use of
tion and BFD. There is currently one headform size, although
clay is appropriate for helmet testing, particularly because
there may be up to six helmet sizes (depending on the type
“the mechanical backface response of the head surrogate may
of helmet).
govern both penetration and impact tolerance portions of the
Two major issues with the headform may compromise its
test” (NRC, 2012, p. 152).
ability to appropriately and consistently measure BFD. First,
One of the critical issues with the current clay (Roma
the petals may impede the BFD of the helmet, which could
Plastilina #1), as first noted in the NRC Phase II report (NRC,
result in under-measurement of the actual ballistic transient
2010), is that the clay is time and temperature sensitive in
deformation of the helmet. Second, as previously discussed,
that, as Figure 4-1 shows, its properties can change signifi-
with only one headform size, the stand-off distances may
cantly over a 45-minute period as it cools. These effects are
vary by helmet. Large helmets likely have a larger stand-off
likely to affect BFD measurements.
distance, whereas small helmets likely have to be forced onto
The previous body armor committees studied many of
the headform with minimal stand-off.
the issues related to clay (NRC, 2012, 2010), and a detailed
The Army is developing five new “sized” headforms
examination of these issues is beyond the scope of this com-
that will have a constant helmet shell-to-headform standoff
mittee’s charge. But the committee notes that, purely from a
distance for the Advanced Combat Helmet.7 As illustrated in
testing process perspective, it is important to minimize this
Figure 4-3, the motivation with the new sized headforms is to
source of variation in the testing process. In particular, the
eliminate one source of variation in helmet testing that arises
Phase III body armor report recommended that DOT&E and
because different sizes of helmets interact with the current
the Army expedite the development of a replacement for the
single-size headform in different ways.
current Roma Plastilina #1 clay that can be used at room
temperature (NRC, 2012). The committee notes that suc-
cessful completion of this effort has the potential to remove 7James Zheng, Chief Scientist, Soldier Protective and Individual Equip-
a significant source of testing variation and thus greatly ment, PEO Soldier, “Helmet Testing, Related Research & Development,”
improve the testing process. presentation to the committee on March 22, 2013.

As described NRC (2012), the ATC headform has three

potential problems. The first is that the solid aluminum pet-
als constrain the flow of the clay during impact, which may
result in a smaller BFD than otherwise would have occurred.
The Peepsite headform reduces this possibility by eliminat-
ing the metallic petals near the impact location.
The second potential problem is that helmet backface con-
tact can span the aluminum petals, either preventing further
impact or altering the BFD response and backface signature
recorded in the clay. As with the first problem, the lack of
petals in the Peepsite headform eliminates the potential for
this type of helmet-headform interaction, which may alter
helmet backface response.
The third potential problem arises because the clay and
helmet have very different temperature characteristics. Using
the current Roma Plastilina #1 clay, the clay is heated above
room temperature to achieve the desired rheological behav-
ior. Testing on the Peepsite headform, however, is done at
room temperature, which means that the rate of cooling of the
clay and the aluminum headform will be different, resulting
in thermal gradients and residual strains and stresses in the
clay that may affect the impact event (NRC, 2012).
NRC (2012) noted that the Peepsite headform reduces the
potential for a number of problems with the existing ATC
headform. It further recommended that the Army should
FIGURE 4-2 Aberdeen Test Center headform. SOURCE: NRC investigate the use of the Peepsite headform for use with the
(2012). new room-temperature clay. That report indicated that the
headform has the potential to improve testing compared to
Finding 4-3. The implementation of new “sized” headforms the ATC clay headform using clay at elevated temperatures.
by theFigure
Army represent
4-2 fixedan improvement in the helmet testing
process because the stand-off between helmet and headform 4.5 REFERENCES
will be the same for all helmet sizes.
CFR (Code of Federal Regulations). 2013. 48 CFR part 246–Quality Assur-
ance. http://cfr.regstoday.com/48cfr246.aspx. Accessed April 1, 2013.
The committee notes that these headforms were “reverse DoD (Department of Defense). 1987. Department of Defense Test Method
engineered” from the existing helmets so that the stand-off Standard: V50 Ballistic Test for Armor. MIL-STD-662F. U.S. Army
distances would all be exactly the same. It is not clear how Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
anthropomorphically correct the new headforms are or how DOT&E (Director of Operational Test and Evaluation). 2011. Standardiza-
closely they reflect the actual needs of soldiers and marines. tion of Combat Helmet Testing. Memorandum from J. Michael Gilmore,
Director. September 20, 2011. Office of the Secretary of Defense,
Washington, D.C. [reprinted in Appendix B]
Recommendation 4-2. For future helmet development and DOT&E. 2012. Standard for Lot Acceptance Ballistic Testing of Military
testing efforts, the Department of Defense should assess the Combat Helmets. Memorandum from J. Michael Gilmore, Director.
importance of using anthropomorphically correct headforms May 4, 2012. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Washington, D.C.
(as well as any other ballistic test dummies) based on head [reprinted in Appendix B]
FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations). 2013. Federal Acquisition Regula-
sizes and proportions that appropriately characterize the tions, Subpart 9.3, Paragraph 9.302. First Article Testing and Approval.
population that will wear the helmet. http://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/html/Subpart%209_3.html. Ac-
cessed March 30, 2013.
The “Peepsite”8 headform (Figure 4-4) was developed by McNeese, W., and R. Klein. 1991. Measurement systems, sampling, and
the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to avoid the drawbacks process capability. Quality Engineering 4(1):21-39.
NRC (National Research Council). 2009. Phase I Report on Review of the
of the ATC headform, in particular, that the clay used to Testing of Body Armor Materials for Use by the U.S. Army: Letter
measure BFD is located in between four solid aluminum Report. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
parts of the headform. NRC. 2010. Testing of Body Armor Materials for Use by the U.S. Army—
Phase II: Letter Report. The National Academies Press, Washington,
D.C.
NRC. 2012. Testing of Body Armor Materials: Phase III. The National
8The “Peepsite” headform was developed at the Army Research Ex- Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
perimental Facility Peep Site Range 20 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

FIGURE 4-3 New Army “sized” headforms. SOURCE: James Zheng, Chief Scientist, Soldier Protective and Individual Equipment, PEO
Soldier, “Helmet Testing, Related Research & Development,” presentation to the committee on March 22, 2013.
Figrue 4-3 fixed
FIGURE 4-4 Peepsite headforms: five headforms, one for each shot direction. SOURCE: Robert Kinsler, Survivability/Lethality Analysis
Directorate, Army Research Laboratory, “The Peepsite Headform,” presentation to the committee on January 24, 2013.
Prather, R., C. Swann, and C. Hawkins. 1977. Backface Signatures of Soft U.S. Army. 2012. Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) Purchase Description,
Figure 4-4 fixed
Body Armors and the Associated Trauma Effects. ARCSL-TR-77055.
U.S. Army Armament Research and Development Command Technol-
Rev A with Change 4. AR/PD 10-02. Soldier Equipment, Program
Executive Office—Soldier, Fort Belvoir, Va.
ogy Center, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.

Helmet Performance Measures and Trends in Test Data
5.0 SUMMARY testing to be an aspect of characterization analyses. This topic

is discussed in Chapter 8.
A helmet’s protective capabilities are evaluated on the
basis of two primary test measures: resistance to penetration
(RTP) and backface deformation (BFD). These are formally 5.2 PERFORMANCE MEASURES
defined and their limitations are discussed in this chapter.
RTP data available to the committee indicate that the prob- Resistance to Penetration
ability of penetration of a helmet shell by a 9-mm bullet, fired
RTP is measured by shooting a given ballistic projectile
under specified conditions, is on the order of 0.005 or less.
at a set of helmets and counting the number of complete
Available BFD data show that the probability of exceeding
penetrations. Most ballistic impacts penetrate the helmet to
the BFD thresholds is around 0.005 or less. The distributions
some degree, so the DOT&E FAT and LAT testing protocols
of the BFD data also demonstrate significant differences
distinguish between complete and partial penetrations. A
among helmet sizes and shot locations. Some of the perfor-
complete penetration in RTP testing is defined as:
mance differences among helmet sizes may be attributed to
the test process, such as headforms and stand-offs. Many Complete perforation of the shell by the projectile or frag-
others are likely to be due to the differences in the geometry ment of the projectile as evidenced by the presence of that
of helmet shells, molds, manufacturing processes, and other projectile, projectile fragment, or spall in the clay, or by a
factors. In fact, helmets of different sizes are intrinsically dif- hole which passes through the shell. In the case of the fas-
ferent products. Therefore, Recommendation 5-5 proposes tener test, any evidence of the projectile, fragment of the pro-
changes to DoD’s test protocols so that helmets of different jectile, or fastener in the clay shall be considered a complete
sizes are treated separately. This is one of the major recom- penetration. Non-metallic material[s] such as paint, fibrous
mendations in the report. materials, edging, or edging adhesion resin that are emitted
from the test specimen and rest on the outer surface of the
clay impression are not considered a complete penetration.2
5.1 INTRODUCTION
For the purpose of helmet testing, protective capabilities A partial penetration is defined as “any fair impact that is not
are measured by RTP and BFD. Section 5.2 defines these a complete penetration.”3 In this report, the term penetration
measures and discusses their limitations. Section 5.3 sum- is used to refer to complete penetration. In DoD documents,
marizes results from test data that were made available to the the term “perforation” is used synonymously with “complete
committee. The implications of these results for the Director penetration.”
of Operational Test and Evaluation’s (DOT&E’s) first article According to personnel from the Army Test Center, there
testing (FAT) and lot acceptance testing (LAT) protocols are is currently no practical way to determine or measure the
discussed in Section 5.4. degree or depth of penetration, and thus helmet penetration
Another measure, called V50,1 is also used in FAT. How- testing is currently attribute-based: on a given (fair) shot,
ever, the estimated value of V50 is not used in the decision the result is recorded as either a complete penetration or a
process. Thus, the committee considers V50 estimation and partial penetration. The intuitive notion is that a projectile
1V refers to “the velocity at which complete penetration and partial 2The protocols for FAT and LAT testing are given in Appendix B.
50
penetration are equally likely to occur” (DoD, 1997). 3Ibid.
32

HELMET PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND TRENDS IN TEST DATA 33
that penetrates the shell is apt to cause more serious head

injuries than a projectile that does not, but there is no other
linkage between what is measured and head injury.
Finding 5-1. It is not known whether partial penetrations 11.819

10.161
Shoot Line
might be reasonably and usefully measured in order to assess 8.502
the degree to which a non-perforated helmet is penetrated. 6.844

Deepest Point
5.185
3.527
V50 testing refers to estimating the bullet speed at which 1.868
there is a 50 percent chance of penetration. This test uses a

–1.868
witness plate mounted inside the headform rather than pack- –3.527
ing the headform with clay as is done with RTP/BFD testing. –5.185
(See Appendix D for details.) Because of this difference, the –6.844

–8.502
DOT&E FAT protocol defines a V50 complete penetration as –10.161
a shot where –11.819
Impacting projectile or any fragment thereof, or any frag-

ment of the test specimen perforates the witness plate result-
ing in a crack or hole which permits light passage. A break
in the witness plate by the helmet deformation is not scored
as a complete penetration.4 FIGURE 5-1 Illustrative backface deformation laser scan.
SOURCE: Courtesy of the Office of the Director of Operational
Finding 5-2. The definition of what constitutes a penetration, Test and Evaluation.
and how such penetrations are measured, differs between
RTP and V50 tests. V50 specifies a “hole which permits light
passage” whereas RTP does not.
assumption that the shape of the resultant cavity provides a
record of the BFD. Since the relative degree of elastic and
Recommendation 5-1. The Office of the Director, Opera- plastic deformation will vary as a function of strain rate, the
tional Test and Evaluation, should revise the first article backing material must be characterized under conditions that
testing protocol for resistance to penetration and V50 testing are relevant to those under which the tests will be performed.
to ensure that the two protocols are consistent. The cavity that results from live-fire ballistic testing is indeed
related to the deformation on the back face of the armor, but
it is not a true record of maximum deflection. It remains
Backface Deformation unknown how the dimensions of the cavity relate to the true
Helmet BFD is measured on the non-perforating ballistic BFD and how such a relationship may depend on the rate at
which the cavity is formed (NRC, 2012, p. 5).
impacts from RTP testing. It is defined as the maximum
depth in the post-impact clay surface at the intended impact
location as measured from the original clay surface. It is mea- Further, whether the appropriate measure is the depth of
sured as follows: After mounting the helmet on the headform the BFD rather than BFD area, BFD volume, or some other
and mounting the headform in the test fixture, the helmet is measure such as total or instantaneous force imparted, is not
removed from the headform, and the clay surface is scanned known. It is also unclear how well BFD from ballistic impact
with a laser. The helmet is then reattached to the headform characterizes the effect of blunt-force trauma, which is one
and the shot taken. Finally, the helmet is again removed from of the main types of brain injury that the helmet is intended
the headform, inspected for penetration and perforation, and to protect against.
the clay is rescanned with the laser to calculate BFD. A typi-
cal BFD laser scan is shown in Figure 5-1. Finding 5-3. It is unknown whether the current definition of
The definition of BFD as the maximum depth of indenta- BFD is the most appropriate for assessing how well helmets
tion left in the clay has a number of issues. First, as discussed protect soldiers and marines from the helmet deformation
in the Phase III report (NRC, 2012) report, clay is an imper- due to ballistic impact and other blunt-force trauma. It may
fect recording medium. As that report said: be that some other measurement, such as the area or volume
of the BFD, or perhaps some measure of force or acceleration
The qualitative assertion that RP #1 exhibits little recovery imparted, is more appropriate for assessing the ability of the
has been interpreted to mean that the level of elastic recovery helmet to protect against brain injury. If such an alternative
is small enough to be safely neglected. This has led to an measurement is found, the protocols and thresholds would
have to be changed appropriately.
4Ibid.

Recommendation 5-2. The Department of Defense should Recommendation 5-4. As research progresses, methods,
develop a better understanding of the relationship between measures, and thresholds should be continuously reviewed
backface deformation and brain damage, including the to determine whether the new knowledge warrants changes
examination of alternative metrics to maximum depth. to any of them. The review team should include adequate
expertise from a broad range of disciplines, including medi-
In addition to the definition of BFD, the DOT&E proto- cal, engineering, and testing professionals.
col specifies BFD thresholds at 25.4 mm for front and back
shots and 16 mm for side and crown shots. These appear to
be based on historical helmet testing precedent and are not 5.3 SUMMARY OF RESULTS FROM AVAILABLE TEST
connected to the potential for brain injury. The analysis, how- DATA
ever, appears to be based on the presumption that the larger The DOT&E FAT and LAT protocols, as well as any addi-
the BFD, the greater the likelihood of serious head injury. tional requirements included in service-specific contractual
requirements, specify RTP and BFD pass or fail require-
Finding 5-4. The choice of the helmet BFD threshold val- ments. The particular details of these tests are described in
ues—25.4 mm for front and back shots and 16 mm for side detail in Chapters 6 and 7. This section summarizes how the
and crown shots—does not have a scientific basis. In con- Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) performs in terms of these
trast, the body armor BFD limit was derived from scientific two measures using data made available to the committee.
studies.
Resistance to Penetration Data
As a result, the usefulness of the helmet FAT and LAT test
data on BFD is limited. The data can be used for assessing Table 5-1 provides a summary of RTP test data for ACH
helmet performance against the requirements in the purchase helmets, provided to the committee, from FAT and LAT.
description and the DOT&E helmet testing protocol; the There were two sources of FAT data: the first with 309 shots
results can also be used to compare helmet performance and the second one with 816 shots, and there were no pen-
within and between manufacturers and over time. But the etrations. So, the estimate of the penetration probability from
data cannot be used to determine the level of protection the combined data is 0, and a 90 percent upper confidence
provided by a new helmet that is designed and manufactured bound (UCB) is 0.002. The LAT data were from four differ-
according to a different set of specifications. This becomes ent vendors (as shown at the bottom of Table 5-1), and there
critical when assessing the protection offered by new helmets were only 7 penetrations out of 11,049 shots. This yields an
because there are trade-offs between penetration, BFD, and estimated probability of penetration of 7/11,049 = 0.0006.
other helmet characteristics, such as weight, form, and fit. The corresponding 90 percent UCB is 0.001. Hence, we see
that a Remington 9-mm full-metal-jacket (FMJ) projectile
Recommendation 5-3. The Department of Defense should shot at a randomly selected ACH, under test conditions, is
examine the basis for backface deformation thresholds and unlikely—with only a 0.1 percent chance—of completely
develop appropriate ones based on scientific studies and data. penetrating the helmet.
TABLE 5-1 Summary of Resistance to Penetration Test Data

Penetration Proportion
Test Type Penetrations Number of Shots (90% Upper Confidence Bound)
FAT—20-shot, five vendors 0 309 0
FAT—240- or 96-shot, four helmets 0 816 0
FAT—All 0 1,125 0.000 (0.002)
LAT—Four vendors (see below) 7 11,049 0.0006 (0.001)
Total 7 12,174 0.0006 (0.001)
Penetration Proportion
(90% Upper Confidence Bound)
LAT, Vendor A 5 5,422 0.0009 (0.002)
LAT, Vendor B 0 2,872 0.0000 (0.001)
LAT, Vendor C 2 1,285 0.0016 (0.004)
LAT, Vendor D 0 1,470 0.0000 (0.002)
NOTE: FAT, first article testing; LAT, lot acceptance testing.
SOURCE: Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation.

During FAT and LAT, each helmet is subjected to five

shots at different locations. So the 11,049 LAT shots corre- 19 Cond.
AM
spond to roughly about 2,200 helmets. See Appendix D for 18

CO
HO
additional details. (If a perforation is observed on a helmet, 17

SE
that helmet is not tested further, so the seven observed per- 16
Averge BFD
forations were all on separate helmets.) One can estimate the 15
probability of helmet failure (rather than penetration at any 14
given location) to be approximately 7/2,200 = 0.003, which
13
is also very low.
12
11
Finding 5-5. Available data indicate that there is very low
probability of helmet perforation (less than 0.005) from a 10
22 23 24 25 26
Remington 9-mm FMJ projectile shot under test conditions. standoff
This level of penetration probability is considerably FIGURE 5-3 Average backface deformation (BFD) as a function of
smaller than the 10 percent “standard” on which the DOT&E stand-off for Data Set 1. Colors represent different environments.
protocol is based. The implications of this result are dis- NOTE: AM, ambient; CO, cold; HO, hot; SE, sea water.
cussed in Chapter 6.
Backface Deformation Data

the data across environments as well as across helmet sizes
This section summarizes relevant results from BFD data and shot locations in the two location groups. Therefore,
that were made available to the committee. the committee has also pooled the data across the environ-
ments. The horizontal solid lines in the figure are the BFD
Data Set 1 upper limits of 25.4-mm for back and front shot locations
and 16-mm for left, right, and crown shot locations. The
Data Set 1 is from a test of 48 ACHs (referred to here as BFD measurements are below the thresholds at all loca-
Helmet 1). Twelve helmets each are exposed to four differ- tions, and in some cases considerably so. Note also that the
ent environments (ambient, cold, and hot temperatures and distributions for the left, right, and crown locations are quite
seawater) prior to testing. The test consisted of firing single comparable, while the distribution for the front location is
shots at five locations on the helmet: front, back, left side, substantially higher than that of the back. This difference was
right side, and crown, leading to a total of 240 shots. The data consistent across the four different environments (figures not
are all from a single-sized helmet (size Large), so the effect shown here), and similar effects were seen with other helmet
of helmet size cannot be studied from this data set. test data as well.
Figure 5-2 shows the BFD measurements by shot loca- The DOT&E protocol based on BFD is formally described
tions. DOT&E’s tolerance limit analysis is based on pooling in Chapter 7, and it requires that the upper 90/90 tolerance
limit of the BFD distribution not exceed the threshold. Figure
5-2 shows that no BFD values exceeded their limits. Further,
for the back/front group of data, the BFD values are consider-
30 ably below their limit.
One possible reason for the differences in BFD measure-
25
ments among location is stand-off: the distance between the
20
inside of the helmet shell and the headform (see discussion
in Chapter 4). For a large ACH, the stand-offs were as fol-
BFD (mm)
15 lows: back, 21.8 mm; front, 22.5 mm; crown, 23.0 mm; and
left and right, 25.6 mm.5 Figure 5-3 shows how the average
10
of the BFD measurements differs with stand-off. The colors
correspond to different environmental conditions. Note that
5
the data are clearly separated by environment. The average
0 BFDs are clearly different for different values of stand-off,
1-Back 2-Front 3-Crown 4-Left 5-Right
Shot Location but the relationship is not monotone, and hence not easy to
5Frank J. Lozano, Product Manager, Soldier Protective Equipment, “Set-

FIGURE 5-2 Backface deformation (BFD) measurements by loca-
tion for Data Set 1. Specified limits of 25.4 mm and 16.0 mm are ting the Specifications for Ballistic Helmets,” presentation to the committee
on April 25, 2013.
indicated by solid lines.

interpret. It may be expected that BFD would decrease as

stand-off increases, but the average BFD for front and back 30
have the opposite difference. The average BFDs for the

25
crown, left, and right locations are quite close, even though
the crown offset is considerably less than the side stand-offs. 20
Perhaps other geometric aspects of the test and the shape of
BFD (mm)
the helmet contribute to these patterns. 15
10
Data Set 2
5
Data Set 2 was from a test of the Marine helmet (MICH)
(Helmet 2). Three helmets each corresponding to four sizes 0
(small [S], medium [M], large [L], and extra large [XL]) were Shot Location
tested at four environmental conditions (ambient, cold, hot,

seawater). Again, there were single shots at five locations
(front, back, left side, right side, and crown) for a total of tion for Data Set 3. Specified limits of 25.4 mm and 16.0 mm are
240 shots. This is the suite of shots specified in the DOT&E indicated by solid lines.
protocol. Figure 5-4 shows the same sort of location differ-
ences for this helmet as for Helmet 1.
There is more spread in the Helmet 2 data than for Helmet
1 because the data are pooled over four helmet sizes as well The Figure 5-5 plot shows that there is considerably less
as four environments. The BFD distributions for L and XL margin for the BFD data for the crown/left/right shot loca-
helmets were different, with the measurements for XL being tions than there was for Helmet 2. Apparently, the design
generally smaller than those for L. Perhaps this is due to change increased the magnitude of the dents in the clay.
using a single headform for L and XL helmets. There were Eight of the 144 BFDs in this group exceeded the 16.0-mm
no appreciable differences among environments. Once again, threshold. The upper 90 percent confidence limit on the prob-
the 10 percent standard is easily met by these data. ability of exceeding the limit, based on this outcome, is about
9 percent, so the 10 percent standard is met in this regard.
Data Set 3 Figure 5-6 shows that the differences among shot loca-
tions for the XL helmet size have a pattern substantially
Data Set 3 was from a test of Helmet 3, a repeat of the different from those of the other three sizes.
Helmet 2 tests, after a design change to the MICH. Figure 5-5
shows the BFD data by location, pooled over environments
and helmet sizes.
30 Back Crown Front Left Right

LG MD
25 20
15
20
10
BFD (mm)
15 5
BFD
SM XL
20
10
15
5
10
5
0
1-Back 2-Front 3-Crown 4-Left 5-Right Back Crown Front Left Right
Shot Location LOCATION
FIGURE 5-4 Backface deformation (BFD) measurements by loca- FIGURE 5-6 Backface deformation (BFD) measurements by loca-
tion for Data Set 2. Specified limits of 25.4 mm and 16.0 mm are tion and helmet size for Data Set 3. NOTE: MD, medium; LG, large;
indicated by solid lines. SM, small; XL, extra large.

• The effect of environments appears to be small. The

30
same is also true for the effect of shot order.
25
5.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR FIRST ARTICLE TESTING

20
PROTOCOLS
BFD (mm)
15 As shown in Table 4.1, the current DOT&E protocols

involve testing 48 helmet shells: 12 each corresponding to
10
sizes S, M, L, and XL. Of the 12 shells, 3 are conditioned in
5
each of four different environments. Further, shots are taken
at five different locations on the helmet. So, the committee
0
looked at RTP and BFD data on a total of 240 shots. Chapters
Shot Location 6 and 7 describe in detail the pass-fail rules for FAT protocols
for RTP and BFD, respectively. Briefly, the RTP protocol
states that if there are 17 or fewer penetrations, the test is
tion for Data Set 4. Solid lines are the specified limits of 25.4 mm deemed to be successful. The BFD protocol is applied sepa-
and 16.0 mm. rately to the two groups of locations with different thresh-
olds: back and front in one group and crown, left, and right
in another. The specific approach involves computing 90/90
Data Set 4 upper tolerance limits (UTLs), based on BFD measurements
and the assumption that the data are normally distributed, and
Data Set 4 was from a FAT for the enhanced combat hel-
comparing the UTLs against their respective thresholds. If
met (Helmet 4). Three helmets, of each of four sizes, were
the UTL is smaller, the test is deemed successful; otherwise
tested at four different environments. However, because of
it is unsuccessful.
excessive helmet damage, the DOT&E protocol was reduced
The plots of the BFD distributions in the previous section
to only two shots on each helmet.
appear to be different across helmets and locations, and this
Figure 5-7 shows the BFD data by shot location. There
raises the issue of pooling the data to implement the protocol.
are 24 shots each in the back and front locations, 16 each in
The differences in the two groups of locations (front and back
the crown, left, and right locations. Figure 5-7 shows that the
versus crown, right, and left) are handled by implementing
BFD data for this helmet are well below their limits.
the protocols separately for the groups with different thresh-
For the data sets analyzed by the committee, 8 of 816 BFD
olds: 25.6-mm and 16-mm. Within the groups, differences
measurements exceeded their respective thresholds. All of
noted at front and back locations indicate that the data should
these were for Helmet 3, which suggests something different
not be pooled and analyzed as a sample from a single normal
about that helmet or the test procedure.
distribution. DOT&E has proposed an analysis to check for
differences in the mean and variances and pool the data only
Finding 5-6. It is clear that manufacturers are capable of
if the test is accepted. In addition to the complexity of the
producing helmets for which the probability of failing the
procedure, the statistical properties of the protocol are not
BFD protocol is very small.
valid when one applies a pre-test before implementing it.
In addition, the committee notes that helmets of differ-
Finding 5-7. Based on the available BFD data, one can make
ent size are intrinsically different products: different-sized
the following observations about heterogeneity:
shells are manufactured from different molds and different
manufacturing processes or settings (even if some of the
• There are substantial differences in BFD data across
equipment and process steps are common). Therefore, pool-
helmet sizes.
ing the BFD data across different-sized helmets and treating
• There is also a great deal of heterogeneity across
the data as homogeneous does not seem appropriate. It also
locations. It was expected that there will be differ-
leads to the cumbersome process of pre-testing to see if
ences in BFD measurements between two shot-loca-
the measurements have the same mean and variance before
tion groups: front and back versus crown, left, and
combining the data.
right. This is reflected in the different BFD thresholds
for the two groups. However, the data consistently
Recommendation 5-5. The Office of the Director, Opera-
indicate that BFD measurements at the front location
tional Test and Evaluation, should revise the current proto-
are larger than those at the back, which is counter to
cols to implement them separately by helmet size.
the differences in stand-off at these locations. There
is much less variability in the data among the other
This recommendation clearly involves a major change
three locations: crown, back, and front.
in the way helmets are currently tested. It will also require

decisions on how the Department of Defense implements 5.5 REFERENCES

procurement decisions. For example, if a particular helmet DoD (Department of Defense). 1997. Department of Defense Test Method
size did not pass FAT and others did, DoD will need to decide Standard: V50 Ballistic Test for Armor. MIL-STD-662F. U.S. Army
whether the helmet sizes that passed FAT can be procured or Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
not. The committee judges that such decisions should be left NRC (National Research Council). 2012. Testing of Body Armor Materials:
to the DoD and should be based on practical considerations Phase III. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
rather than statistical properties of the protocol.

First Article Testing Protocols for Resistance to Penetration:

Statistical Considerations and Evaluation of DoD Test Plans
6.0 SUMMARY DOT&E plan that has recently been adopted by the Army. A
modification of the current protocol for the enhanced com-
The test protocols for Army helmets were originally based
bat helmet (ECH) is also examined. These discussions are
on a requirement of zero penetrations in 20 shots (five shots
directly relevant to the issues raised in the correspondence
on each of four helmets). The Director, Operational Test
between U.S. Representative Slaughter and the Department
and Evaluation (DOT&E) protocol replaced this legacy plan
of Defense. To provide adequate background, the chapter
with a requirement of 17 or fewer penetrations in 240 shots
begins with an overview of the statistical considerations in
(five shots on each of 48 helmets). The helmets spanned four
the design of test protocols for RTP. The chapter ends with a
sizes and were tested in four different environments. The
discussion of several topics: (1) robustness of the operating
0-out-of-20 (0, 20) plan and DOT&E’s 17-out-of-240 (17,
characteristic (OC) curves when the penetration probabili-
240) plan have comparable performance if the probability of
ties vary across different test conditions; (2) examination of
penetrating a helmet shell on a single shot is around 0.10. As
possible protocols for testing by helmet sizes; (3) post-test
noted in Chapter 5, available data indicate that penetration
analysis of the RTP data to determine the achieved penetra-
probabilities are around 0.005 or less. Near this value of pen-
tion probabilities of the tested helmets; and (4) a proposal to
etration probability, both plans have a 90 percent or higher
base future protocols with the helmets as the test unit rather
chance of passing the test, so the manufacturer’s risk is small,
than shots.
as it should be. However, if there is a 10-fold increase in the
penetration probability from the current level of 0.005 to
0.05, DOT&E’s (17, 240) plan still has a 95 percent chance 6.2 STATISTICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN DESIGNING
of acceptance. This may not provide sufficient incentive for TEST PLANS FOR RESISTANCE TO PENETRATION
the manufacturer to sustain current penetration-probability
As described in Chapter 4, the RTP test protocol speci-
levels. Thus, the (17, 240) plan may have the unintended
fies that helmets of different sizes be conditioned in selected
effect of leading to a reduction in helmet penetration resis-
environments and that shots be taken at different locations
tance. In the absence of a link between penetration probabil-
on the helmet. However, in this section, the committee starts
ity and human injury, there is no scientific basis for setting a
with a simple setup—a single helmet size, a single shot loca-
limit on the penetration probability. In such a circumstance,
tion on the helmet, and a single environment—so that the test
the committee’s view is that the objective of a new test plan
deals with a homogeneous population of units and a single
should be to provide assurance that newly submitted helmets
test environment. (To be specific, one can think of a medium
are at least as penetration-resistant as current helmets. This
helmet, top location on the helmet, at ambient temperature.)
chapter proposes appropriate criteria for selecting test proto-
It is then reasonable to view the penetration outcomes when
cols and illustrates their use through several plans.
n helmets are tested in this manner as being independent and
identically distributed binary (pass/fail) random variables
6.1 INTRODUCTION with constant penetration probability θ. Thus, the probability
distribution of X, the (random) number of penetrations in n
The primary goal of this chapter is to evaluate DOT&E’s
shots, is a binomial distribution with parameters (n, θ). The
protocol for testing a helmet’s resistance to penetration
statistical properties of a test plan can be derived from this
(RTP). The committee compares its performance with that
distribution.
of the Army’s legacy plan and a modified version of the
39

c-out-of-n Test Plans The y axis in Figure 6-1 shows the probability that a
(c = 1, n = 40) test will be successful as a function of the
The test plans used by DOT&E for RTP are of the fol-
underlying penetration probability θ. These acceptance
lowing form: take n shots, and if c or fewer penetrations are
probabilities are given by the cumulative distribution, P(X ≤
observed, the first article testing (FAT) passes; otherwise, it
1| θ), where X has a binomial distribution with n = 40 and
fails. In this study, the committee refers to such tests as (c, n)-
penetration probability equal to θ. For example, if θ, the
plans. They are also called binomial reliability demonstra-
underlying (unknown) penetration probability, equals 0.02
tions plans or acceptance-sampling plans for attribute data.
(green line), the probability of acceptance is 0.8 (80 percent
The plan is defined by the value of two constants: c and n.
chance of passing). If θ = 0.10 (red line), the probability
Once these are specified, the protocol’s properties are deter-
of acceptance is approximately 0.10. Conversely, in order
mined and can be studied through its operating characteristic
to have a probability of acceptance of 0.6 (black line), the
(OC) curve. An OC curve is a plot of the probability (P) of
true penetration probability needs to be about 0.38. So the
acceptance (y axis) against the underlying failure (penetra-
OC curve describes the relationship between the acceptance
tion) probability of the items under test (x axis). Figure 6-1
probabilities and the underlying penetration probability as θ
shows the OC curve for a (c = 1, n = 40) test plan; i.e., the
ranges across values of interest.
FAT is successful if there are one or fewer penetrations in
Suppose the decision maker examined the OC curve for
40 shots.
the 1-out-of-40 (1, 40) plan in Figure 6-1 and decided that
In Figure 6-1 and subsequent plots of OC curves in this
the acceptance probability of 0.10 when θ = 0.10 is too high.
report, the x axis is the true (but unknown) penetration
There are two options for reducing this value: decreasing c
probability θ. This format is different from the OC curves
or increasing n.
that are currently used by the Army and DOT&E that plot
Figure 6-2 provides a comparison with two alternatives:
the probability of nonpenetration in the x axis. One should
0-out-of-40 (0, 40) and 1-out-of-70 (1, 70) plans. For both
focus on the penetration probability, because it is easier to
(c = 0, n = 40) and (c = 1, n = 70) plans, the acceptance
interpret the curve as the penetration probability changes.
probabilities are close to zero for θ = 0.10. This may be
For example, an increase in θ from 0.005 to 0.05 is easy
acceptable to the decision maker who is the purchaser in
to interpret as a 10-fold increase in penetration probability;
this situation. But one cannot discriminate between the two
it is hard to interpret this change in terms of 1 – θ, which
plans at this value of θ.
decreases from 0.995 to 0.95.
Consider the case where the target penetration probability
is θ = 0.01. Figure 6-2 shows that, at this level, the (0, 40)
Recommendation 6-1. The operating characteristic curves
plan has an acceptance probability of about 0.63, while the
used by the Department of Defense should display penetra-
6-1 (1, 70) plan has an acceptance probability of about 0.83.
tion probabilities rather than non-penetration probabilities
Since this is the target penetration probability, the decision
on the x axes.
maker will want to accept helmets with a high probability
and will choose the (1, 70) plan or another plan that provides
an even higher acceptance probability at θ = 0.01.
6-1
1.0
0.8
n c
1.0
40 1
40 0
70 1
0.6 0.8
n sample size
c acceptance number
0.6
0.4
0.4
0.2
0.2
0.0
0.0
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
Probability of Penetration Probability of Penetration
FIGURE 6-1 Operating characteristic curve for (c = 1, n = 40) FIGURE 6-2 Operating characteristic curves comparing 1-out-
test plan. The green and red lines show the probabilities of accep- of-40 test plan with 0-out-of-40 and 1-out-of-70 test plans. The blue
tance for the plan when the true probabilities of penetrations are, lines show the probabilities of acceptance for the two plans when
respectively, 0.02 and 0.10. The black line shows that, if we want the true probability of penetration is 0.1; the green lines show the
the probability of acceptance to be 0.6, the true penetration prob- corresponding acceptance probabilities when the true penetration
ability has to be 0.38. probability is 0.005.

FIRST ARTICLE TESTING PROTOCOLS FOR RESISTANCE TO PENETRATION 41
Because manufacturers want to have a high probability P( X ≤ c | n, θ = θH) ≤ β Equation 6.2

of passing the test, their helmet design and manufacturing
process should attain a penetration probability that achieves In quality control terminology, θL is the “acceptable quality
this goal. For example, to have a 90 percent chance of pass- level” for the plan, and θH is the “rejectable quality level.”
ing under the (0, 40) plan, the penetration probability will There are two kinds of errors that can occur in the (c, n)
need to be about 0.003. To pass the (1, 70) test, penetration accept-reject decision. The first error is to reject the helmet
probability will need to be about 0.008, which is not as (fail the acceptance test) when the underlying penetration
stringent a target as is set by the (0, 40) plan. These are the probability is at the low (or desired) value (i.e., θ ≤ θL); this
kinds of considerations and trade-offs that go into selecting is often referred to as producer’s or manufacturer’s risk. The
a test plan. The next subsection provides a discussion of test term manufacturer’s risk is used in this report. Equation 6.1
designs that are derived by specifying two points on a plan’s limits the probability of this error to at most α. The second
OC curve. error is to accept helmets when the penetration probability is
A few additional remarks on Figure 6-2: too high (i.e., for values of θ ≥ θH). These are usually called
consumer’s or customer’s risk. The committee refers to this
• The OC curve for the (0, 40) plan is always below that risk as government’s risk in this report. As shown by Equa-
of the (1, 40) plan. This is intuitively clear because tion 6.2, the probability of this error is at most β. These are
the (0, 40) plan is more stringent (it has the same the Type I and Type II error probabilities in the correspond-
sample size but accepts fewer failures), so the prob- ing statistical hypothesis testing formulation of the problem.
ability of passing the test is lower. Equations 6.1 and 6.2 specify the cumulative binomial
• The OC curve for the (1, 70) plan is always below that acceptance probabilities at two points. By setting the inequal-
of the (1, 40) plan. This is also obvious because the ities as equalities, one can solve them to get the values of test
(1, 70) has a larger sample size but allows the same size, n, and acceptance limit, c, that satisfy these equations.
number of failures as the (1, 40) plan. Because the binomial distribution is discrete, one typically
• More generally, consider two plans that have OC cannot achieve the equalities for α and β exactly. (There are
curves that cross, such as the (0, 40) and (1, 70) plans catalogs of test plans and software that can be readily used to
in Figure 6-2. The two plans cross at a penetration obtain the values of c and n to meet particular risks.)
probability of 0.05. To the left of that point, the (1, As a concrete example, suppose the test should be
70) plan has the higher acceptance probability. To the designed to ensure that helmets with an underlying penetra-
right, the (0, 40) plan has the higher probability of tion probability of θ = 0.005 have at least a 90 percent chance
acceptance (although the differences are quite small). of passing the test. So θL = 0.005 and (1 – α) = 0.90, or α
= 0.10. Further, suppose it was decided that if the penetra-
The different perspectives of manufacturer and purchaser
could lead them to prefer different plans. Different plans 6-3
could be considered and evaluated and a compromise plan
could be negotiated. Alternatively, as described in the next
subsection, plans can be derived from specifications of manu-
facturer’s and purchaser’s risks. 1.0
0.8
Statistical Approaches to Selecting (c, n)-Test Plans

0.6
The conventional statistical approach for choosing a
test plan is to specify two points on the OC curve: (1) a
0.4
low penetration-probability, θL, at which a high acceptance
probability, denoted by (1 – α), is desired (a manufacturing 0.2
process that produces good helmets has a high probability
of being accepted), and (2) a high penetration-probability, 0.0
θH, at which a low acceptance probability β is desired (a 0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10
manufacturing process that produces poor helmets has a high Probability of Penetration
probability of being rejected). Expressing these objectives

algebraically leads to the following two equations: FIGURE 6-3 Operating characteristic curves of (c = 1, n = 77)
plan with the desired risks. The black line shows the probability
P( X ≤ c | n, θ = θL ) ≥ (1 – α) Equation 6.1 of acceptance for the plan when the true probability of penetration
is 0.1; the green and red lines show the corresponding acceptance
and probabilities when the true penetration probabilities are, respec-
tively, 0.005 and 0.02.

tion probability is θ = 0.05, which is an order of magnitude The committee performed numerical investigations to
higher, there must be at most a 10 percent chance of passing examine the differences between the true OC curves and the
the test. So, θH = 0.05, and β = 0.10. Therefore, the test is OC curves obtained by assuming that the penetration prob-
designed to discriminate between helmets with penetration abilities are the same across all shots. It examined a range of
probabilities of 0.005 and 0.05. In this example, both α and deviations for the penetration probabilities. Further, it took
β are the same, but they do not have to be. These two risks the constant penetration probability for comparison to be the
are specified by the decision maker. average of the varying probabilities. The study shows that the
Figure 6-3 shows the OC curve for the 1-out-of-77 (1, differences in the OC curves are negligible for the range of
77) test plan that meets the above requirements. It has the penetration probabilities and deviations that are relevant to
desired properties at the specified penetration probabilities the helmet situation.
of 0.005 and 0.05. In practice, however, after a plan has been
obtained, one should also examine its OC curve at other Finding 6-1. RTP data aggregated over helmet sizes,
values of θ to see if it has reasonable (not too low or not too environments, and shot locations may not have a constant
high) acceptance probabilities. In this case, if θ = 0.02 (a underlying penetration probability. An evaluation of operat-
four-fold increase from the desired penetration probability), ing characteristics for modest departures from this situation
the acceptance probability is about 0.55. One may decide indicates that the actual acceptance probabilities are negli-
that this is too high and look for a more stringent plan—say gibly different from those calculated assuming a constant
one with c = 1 but a larger value of n. That change, however, underlying penetration probability. This means that the OC
would increase the manufacturer’s risk and decrease the gov- curves computed under the assumption of constant prob-
ernment’s risk. The OC curve of an acceptance plan conveys ability provide very good approximations.
a variety of incentives and disincentives to stakeholders in
the acceptance decision. 6.3 STATISTICAL EVALUATION OF DOD PROTOCOLS
FOR RESISTANCE TO PENETRATION
Zero-Failure Plans
“Legacy” Protocol for the Advanced Combat Helmet
A common class of test protocols is based on zero-failures
(i.e., c = 0). One reason is that the lower the value of c, The legacy protocol, first specified by the program man-
the smaller the number of units to be tested, n, in order to ager for the Advanced Combat Helmet (DoD IG, 2013), was
achieve a particular level of government’s risk. However, a (0, 20) test plan. It involved testing four helmets, one each
there may be a false perception associated with zero-failure at four test environments (ambient, hot, and cold tempera-
plans: Because it does not allow any failures, the quality of tures and seawater). Only large-size helmets were tested. For
the products must be, in general, considerably higher than each helmet, the protocol required shooting a 9-mm bullet at
the government’s threshold quality. It is clear but worth five different locations, for a total of 20 shots. The five shots
reiterating that a zero-failure plan does not imply that the on each helmet were in a fixed shot sequence and pattern. No
penetration probability is zero! For example, if the penetra- penetrations were allowed (i.e., it was a zero-failure plan).
tion probability is 0.03, the probability of zero penetrations
in 20 shots is 0.54. This means that, even though there is a
3 percent chance of penetration, the 0-out-of-20 failure plan
will pass the test more than half of the time. Therefore, an
outcome of 0/20 does not imply zero penetration probability.
0.005 0.1
1.0
Robustness to Deviations from the Binomial Distribution 0.9

0.8
The preceding subsection was based on a framework

0.6
in which the penetration probability θ was constant across
all shots. This assumption does not strictly hold in helmet 0.4
testing: the helmets are of different sizes, they are tested at

0.2
different environmental conditions, and the shots are taken 0.12
at multiple locations on the helmet. It is possible that the 0.0
penetration probability is different at different helmet loca- 0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20
penetration probability
tions. When the penetration probabilities vary across shots,
the number of penetrations, X, in n shots would not have a
FIGURE 6-4 Operating characteristic curve for the legacy (0, 20)
binomial distribution. Therefore, the OC curves computed
test plan. The darker dashed lines show the probabilities of ac-
under this model would not apply exactly. The question of ceptance for the plan when the true penetration probabilities are
interest is whether the binomial calculations are still useful. 0.10 and 0.005.

2007 to take over the responsibility to prescribe policy and

1.0
n c procedures for the conduct of live-fire test and evaluation of
20 0
240 17 body armor and helmets (DoD IG, 2013).
DOT&E decided to increase the number of helmets
n sample size
tested to 48 in order to cover a range of conditions and to

0.6 have adequate precision in comparing any differences in
penetration probability, or BFD, due to environment, helmet
0.4 size, and shot location. The new protocol called for testing
48 helmets, 12 each for Small, Medium, Large, and Extra
0.2
Large sizes. Three helmets of each size were conditioned in
the four environments before testing. There were five shots
0.0
at different helmet locations, leading to a total of 240 shots.
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
Probability of Penetration There are good statistical reasons to justify DOT&E’s
increase in the number of helmets tested to 48 helmets from
FIGURE 6-5 Comparison of the operating characteristic curves for the Army’s 5. One gets more precise estimates of the pen-
(0, 20) and (17, 240) plans. The blue lines show the probabilities etration probability from 240 shots than from 20 shots. In
of acceptance for the two plans when the true probability of pen- addition, DOT&E’s plan allows better statistical comparison
etration is 0.1; the purple and green lines show the corresponding of possible differences between helmet sizes and environ-
acceptance probabilities when the true penetration probabilities are, mental conditions.
respectively, 0.005 and 0.05. To examine the properties of the (c = 17, n = 240)-plan,
recall that if n is specified, one can control only one point
on the OC curve, or one of the two risks, by the choice of
This legacy test plan was adapted from prior helmet
c. With n chosen, the DOT&E approach was to specify that,
protocols and was not designed to meet specified statistical
for penetration probability of 0.10, the probability of accep-
risks. Nevertheless, one can study its properties through its
tance (the government’s risk) should be no more than 10
OC curve in Figure 6-4. The acceptance probability is about
percent. This is referred to as the 90/90 plan (corresponding
0.12 when the penetration probability is 0.10. In other words,
to a rejection probability of at least 0.90 at nonpenetration
if the underlying shot penetration probability is 0.10, the hel-
probability of 0.90). To summarize, DOT&E’s (17, 240) plan
mets will fail the demonstration test 88 percent of the time.
was chosen by first increasing the sample size n to be 240
Consider the behavior of the curve to the left of θ = 0.10
for statistical reasons. Then, the 90/90 standard was applied
and the implications for manufacturers. If a manufacturer
to get the maximum number of acceptable failures to be 17.
wants to have a 90 percent chance or higher of passing the
Thus, there is a direct relationship between the 90/90 stan-
(0, 20) test, the helmet design and production process would
dard and the (17, 240) plan.
have to achieve a penetration probability of θ = 0.005 or less.
However, there is no scientific or empirical basis for
Note that the manufacturer has to achieve a penetration
specifying 0.10 as the acceptable limit for a helmet’s pen-
probability considerably less than the government’s standard
etration probability. It appears that the 90/90 standard was
of θ = 0.10 to have a good chance of passing the (0, 20) test.
chosen because of its use in body armor protocols1 and also
While the government, by its specification of θ = 0.10 as its
because the legacy protocol approximately had this property.
limit on penetration probability, may be willing to purchase
That specification led to the (c = 17, n = 240) test plan. The
helmets with, say, θ = 0.075, the manufacturer would not aim
committee does not know if there was any attempt to control
at that target because the chance of passing the (0, 20) test is
the manufacturer’s risk.
too low for comfort—about 0.20 in Figure 6-5.
Figure 6-5 provides a comparison of the OC curves for
As noted earlier, the government’s risk at θ = 0.10 was
the (0, 20) and (17, 240) plans. The two OC curves cross
0.12. So, this plan does not strictly satisfy the 90/90 property
at about θ = 0.092. The (0, 20) plan has higher acceptance
(at most 10 percent government’s risk at penetration prob-
probabilities to the right of this penetration probability and
ability 0.10 or, equivalently, at least 90 percent chance of
has lower acceptance probabilities to the left. The two plans
failing the test if the nonpenetration probability is 0.90.) One
have about the same acceptance probabilities (government
needs a 0-out-of-22 (0, 22) plan to satisfy this requirement.
risks), in the neighborhood of θ = 0.10, as intended.
The 90/90 criterion was explicitly adopted by DOT&E in its
When θ = 0.005, near the region where the manufactur-
subsequent protocols.
ers are currently operating (see Chapter 5), the acceptance
probability of the (0, 20) plan is about 0.9, while that of the
DOT&E’s (c = 17, n = 240) Protocol (17, 240) plan is essentially 1.0. Thus, the (17, 240) plan has
In response to a Senate and House Armed Services Com-
mittee’s request, the Secretary of Defense asked DOT&E in 1Personal communication between Christopher Moosmann, DOT&E, and
Nancy Schulte, NRC, via e-mail on May 14, 2013.

lower manufacturer’s risk. Director Gilmore’s letter to Rep. there is a 10-fold increase in the current penetration prob-
Slaughter (see Appendix A) recognized that the DOT&E ability (from 0.005 to 0.05), this may provide a disincentive
protocol would lessen the burden on manufacturers to pass to maintain current levels of penetration resistance. In this
the test with helmets with an underlying penetration prob- sense, the (17, 240) plan is not as good as the legacy plan
ability less than the “standard” of 0.10. However, this is not of (0, 20).
necessarily an advantage.
Consider a comparison of the two plans when the penetra- It is likely that manufacturers are more motivated by
tion probability equals 0.05, which is a 10-fold increase in having a high probability of passing the test than they are
the penetration probability from the currently achieved level in avoiding a penetration probability at the current DOT&E
of around 0.005. For this value of θ = 0.05, the acceptance “standard” of 0.10, a value nearly two orders of magnitude
probability is about 0.38 for the (0, 20) plan, while it is about higher than what current data indicate for a helmet penetra-
0.95 for the (17, 240) plan. Thus, even if there is a 10-fold tion probability. If manufacturers have a very high probabil-
degradation in the penetration resistance of helmets, there ity of passing the test, even if there is a substantial increase
is a 95 percent chance of accepting the helmets under the in the penetration probability, the (17, 240) plan may have
DOT&E protocol. Similar comparisons can be made at other the unintended effect of leading to a reduction in helmet
values of θ to the left of the point where the two curves cross. penetration resistance.
For example, for any values of penetration probability of θ ≤
0.04—a five-fold increase—the helmets will almost certainly Recommendation 6-2. If there is a scientific basis to link
be accepted. To the right of the crossing point, however, the brain injury with performance metrics (such as penetra-
(0, 20) plan has a higher acceptance probability (and hence tion frequency and backface deformation), the Director of
poorer performance in terms of screening out helmets with Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) should use this
high penetration probabilities, but still less than a 12 percent information to set the appropriate standard for performance
chance of acceptance). metrics in the test protocols. In the absence of such a sci-
A decision on which of the two plans is better comes down entific basis, DOT&E should develop a plan that provides
to deciding what is the relevant range of values of the pen- assurance that it leads to the production of helmets that are
etration probability. DOT&E’s (17, 240) plan focuses around at least as penetration-resistant as currently fielded helmets.
θ = 0.10, and its main objective is to prevent helmets with
a 0.10 penetration probability or more from being accepted.
Enhanced Combat Helmet Protocol: Modified DOT&E
The (17, 240) plan has comparable performance to the (0,
Protocol
20) plan at this point and has lower acceptance probabilities
for θ ≥ 0.10. So if this is the region of interest, then the (17, The ECH protocol, a modification of the DOT&E pro-
240) plan is superior to the (0, 20) plan. However, if the tocol, is a 5-out-of-96 (5, 96) plan that involves taking two
objective of the plan is to provide an incentive for manufac- shots each at 48 helmets. The acceptance limit of c = 5 is
turers to produce helmets at least as good as current helmets based on the 90/90 criterion. Figure 6-6 provides a compari-
(θ ≤ 0.005), the (0, 20) plan is better in that it has a lower son of its OC curve with that of the (0, 20) plan. It shows that,
probability of acceptance for helmets that are not as good if the penetration probability is 0.035, the manufacturer’s risk
as current helmets up to a penetration probability of 0.10.
To evaluate a plan, one needs to consider the whole OC
curve, not just one point that may have been used to specify
the plan. The DOT&E plan focuses on the point at which θ
= 0.10. Its main objective is to prevent helmets with a 0.10 1.0
n c
20 0
penetration probability or more from being accepted. Avail- 96 5
n sample size
able data show that the Department of Defense’s design and 0.8
c acceptance number
production specifications have led to helmets with a much

0.6
lower penetration probability. The committee considers it
appropriate to replace the current (17, 240) plan, in light of 0.4
the available RTP data, with a plan that has the objective of
providing an incentive for manufacturers to produce helmets 0.2
at least as penetration resistant as current helmets (θ ≤ 0.005).

0.0
The (17, 240) plan does not have that property.
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
Finding 6-2. Helmet manufacturers are currently produc-

ing helmets with a penetration probability near θ = 0.005,
conservatively. If, as is the case for the (17, 240) plan, the
FIGURE 6-6 Comparison of the operating characteristic curves for
manufacturers have a low risk of failing the test even when (0, 20) and (5, 96) plans.

plan of (0, 20). It is intuitively clear that the OC curve of

1.0
0.005
the hybrid plan should be below that of its two component
0.9 0.9 plans—(0, 22) and (17, 218)—because it is more stringent
Plan
0.8 P(0/20) than either one. Figure 6-8 confirms that this is indeed the
P(0/22)
0.7 P(17/218)
P(0/22;17/218)
case. The plan’s government risk when θ = 0.005 is around
0.6 0.10 (i.e., there is a 90 percent chance that helmets with
0.5
penetration probability of 0.005 will be accepted). This is
0.4
comparable to the (0, 20) legacy plan and also the first-stage
0.3
(0, 22) plan. The government’s risk when θ = 0.10 is close
0.2
to zero and much lower than the other three plans being
0.1 0.1
compared.
0.0
0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.10 0.11 0.12 0.13 0.14 0.15 Because of the first stage, the modified protocol maintains
essentially the same incentive for a manufacturer to achieve
6-5 a penetration probability in the 0.001 to 0.005 neighborhood,
FIGURE 6-7 Operating characteristic curves for the hybrid plan in order to have a high probability of passing the acceptance
and comparison to others. test. Further, thanks to the (0, 22) first-stage threshold, the
protocol is considerably more stringent in rejecting submit-
ted product with underlying penetration probability in the
0.05 to 0.10 range than is the (17, 240) plan in Figure 6-5.
n c
1.0 60
60
0
1
The (17, 218) criterion for Stage 2 would, by itself, give the
60 2 impression that a penetration probability as high as 17/218 =
0.8
8 percent is acceptable, which is quite different from Stage 1
n sample size
c acceptance number
of the plan. Fortunately, if a product was submitted that had

0.6
an underlying 0.08 probability of penetration, that helmet is
0.4
unlikely to pass the (0, 22) first stage test.2
With this hybrid protocol, the Army has actually made
0.2 this hybrid test plan more stringent than the earlier (0, 20)
plan, particularly for penetration probabilities in the range
0.0 of 0.05 to 0.12.
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
Finding 6-3. The Army’s modified plan satisfies the crite-
rion that it will provide an incentive for manufacturers to
FIGURE 6-8 Operating characteristic curves for three plans with produce helmets that are at least as penetration resistant as
n = 60. The blue lines show the probabilities of acceptance for the current helmets.
three plans when the true probability of penetration is 0.05; the
purple lines show the corresponding acceptance probabilities when
the true penetration probability is 0.05. 6.4 EXAMINATION OF SEPARATE TEST PLANS BY
HELMET SIZE
The committee made a recommendation in Chapter 5
is about 0.10 (i.e., there is a 90 percent probability of accep- related to testing by separate helmet sizes (Recommendation
tance). Again, this is about an order of magnitude greater 5-3). It is neither the committee’s intention nor its charge to
than the penetration probability that available data indicate. recommend a specific alternative. Instead, the committee
The above findings and recommendations pertaining to the discusses the properties of several plans to indicate the con-
full DOT&E protocol also apply here. siderations that DOT&E should take into account in making
its decision.
If the current practice of 240 total shots is continued,
Army’s Modification of the DOT&E Protocol there would be 60 9-mm shots for each helmet size. Figure
In 2012, with DOT&E’s approval, the Army modified the 6-8 compares some possible acceptance plans. It shows that
(17, 240) plan to a hybrid (two-stage) protocol (U.S. Army, at the current operating level of around θ = 0.005, the three
2012). The two stages involve conducting a (0, 22) plan in plans have acceptance probabilities of about 0.76, 0.95, and
the first stage; if the lot passes this test, then a second 17-out- almost 1, respectively, for c = 0, 1, and 2. One could decide
of-218 (17, 218) plan is used, for a total of 240 shots.
Figure 6-7 provides a comparison of the OC curves of 2The Army’s hybrid plan essentially separates the procurement decision
the hybrid plan with its component plans and also the legacy from the characterization analysis that is made possible by the complete
set of 240 shots.

that the manufacturer’s risk of 1 – 0.76 = 0.24 for the c = 0

plan is too stringent. One can compare the two remaining
plans at θ = 0.05, which represents a 10-fold increase in
penetration probability. The c = 2 plan has a 40 percent 1.0
chance of acceptance, while the c = 1 plan has about a 19 0.9
0.8
percent chance of acceptance. One can then conclude that 0.7
a 40 percent chance of accepting helmets with penetration Phmt-acc(1/16)
0.6
probability of 0.05 is too high, in which case the c = 2 plan Prob(acc) 0.5
is not desirable. If the 19 percent is at an acceptable level, 0.4
then one can go with the 1-out-of-60 (1, 60) plan. 0.3
An alternative approach to determining a plan for each 0.2
0.1
helmet size is to specify the manufacturer’s and govern-
0.0
ment’s risks and derive both the sample size and acceptance 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
limit that would meet those criteria. Earlier in this chapter p-shot
the committee derived a (1, 77) plan that had a 90 percent
chance of acceptance probability at θ = 0.005 and a 10 per- FIGURE 6-9 Comparison of helmet-level and shot-level test proto-
cent chance of acceptance probability at θ = 0.05. This plan cols. Blue line corresponds to a helmet-level plan; and dashed red
provided an incentive for manufacturers to achieve helmets line corresponds to the (1,77) shot-level plan.
with a penetration resistance that is at least as good as cur-
rent helmets and protected against the acceptance of helmets
that are 10 times worse than current helmets. By increasing
Recommendation 6-3. The government’s risk should be
the number of helmets tested in each environment to 4, the
controlled at much lower penetration levels than the 0.10
number of tests for each helmet size would be 80. A 1-out-
value specified by the 90/90 standard.
of-80 (1, 80) plan would have an OC curve with comparable
(slightly lower) acceptance probabilities as the (1, 77) plan.
6.6 FUTURE TEST PROTOCOLS: HELMET AS THE
UNIT OF TEST
6.5 POST-TEST ANALYSIS
The current FAT protocols are based on a shot as the
It is important that the Army and DOT&E compute the
unit of test: The (17, 240) plan takes 240 shots, and FAT is
upper confidence bounds for the penetration probability after
successful if there are 17 or fewer penetrations. However,
the test is conducted. This confidence bound will provide
the basic unit of production is a helmet, not a shot location
additional information on the quality level of the helmets
on a helmet. While it is important to test RTP at different
being tested.
locations, it seems desirable to make accept/reject decisions
As an example, consider the (17, 240) test plan. Suppose
based on a helmet as the test unit. For example, observing
the test is conducted, and the result was one penetration. The
five penetrations on a single helmet is quite different from
estimated penetration probability of 1/240 = 0.004. The 90
a single penetration at the same location on five different
percent upper confidence bound for the underlying penetra-
helmets. A helmet-level test, one that scores a helmet as a
tion probability based on these data is 0.016. On the other
failure if there is at least one penetration, would distinguish
hand, if there were 10 penetrations, and the estimated pen-
between these two cases: one failure in the former case, and
etration probability is 0.04, an order of magnitude higher, the
five failures in the latter.
upper 90 percent confidence limit would be 0.06. The upper
This section studies the properties of FAT plans defined at
95 percent confidence limit is exactly equal to the designed
the helmet level. This option with respect to lot acceptance
value of 0.10 only if there are 17 penetrations. In other words,
testing is discussed in Chapter 8.
the 90/90 conclusion is pertinent only if the maximum num-
Consider the rule where a helmet is scored a failure if
ber of acceptable penetrations is observed during the test.
there is at least one penetration among the five shots on that
In these three examples, the observed number of failures
helmet.3 Let the penetration probabilities for the five loca-
differs substantially, so the data provide additional informa-
tions be denoted by θ1, θ2, θ3, θ4, and θ5. Further, for the sake
tion on the underlying penetration probability and, hence,
of illustration, suppose the penetrations at different locations
the quality of the helmets that will be manufactured. The
only exception is with zero-failure plans where the observed
number of failures is fixed up front and only a single outcome 3In practice, one might declare a helmet failure at the first penetration and
(zero failures) is allowed for a successful outcome. not complete the five shots, and thus reduce the cost of testing. However,
for the sake of further characterization analyses, the protocol might require
that each suite of five shots might be completed. Note that this is part of the
test protocol to evaluate helmet performance. There is no assumption that
this test plan represents a situation in which a soldier takes five helmet hits.

are independent events. Let θ(helmet) denote the probability The two plans have virtually identical OC curves. This is
of a helmet failure. Then, not surprising. Two or more penetrations on any one helmet
has a small probability for the range of θ values considered.
1 – θ(helmet) = (1– θ1) × (1– θ2) × (1– θ3) × (1– θ4) × (1– θ5) So, one failure in 16 helmets means most likely that only one
penetration occurred among the 80 shots in the 16 helmet
Suppose one wants a helmet-level test plan with the prop- tests. A (1, 80) plan is not much different from one of (1, 77).
erties that the probability of acceptance is at least 0.90 when
θ(helmet) = 0.025 and at most 0.10 when θ(helmet) = 0.25. Finding 6-4. Test plans with a helmet as the unit of test are
The blue solid line in Figure 6-9 shows the OC curve for this more desirable and interpretable than those based on shots as
1-out-of-16 (1, 16) plan: test n = 16 helmets, and the FAT is the unit. When the penetration probability of a shot is small,
successful if no more than one helmet fails. the helmet-level test plans and the shot-level test plans will
One can compare this helmet-level plan with a plan based require about the same number of shots.
on shots as the unit of test. When the θi’s are all small,
θ(helmet) can be approximated as the sum of the θi’s, the Recommendation 6-4. The Department of Defense should
individual shot-location probabilities. For illustrative pur- consider developing and using protocols with helmets as the
poses, it is assumed that all the θi’s are the same and equal unit of test for future generations of helmets.
θ. Then, if θ(helmet) = 0.025, θ approximately equals 0.005;
further, if θ(helmet) = 0.25, θ approximately equals 0.05.
6.7 REFERENCES
Earlier in this chapter, it was shown that a shot-level plan
that satisfied these properties was a (1, 77) plan, shown in DoD IG (Department of Defense Inspector General). 2013. Advanced
Combat Helmet Technical Assessment. DODIG-2013-079. Department
Figure 6-3. This OC curve is superimposed in Figure 6-9 as
of Defense, Washington, D.C.
the dashed red line. U.S. Army. 2012. Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) Purchase Description,
Executive Office—Soldier, Fort Belvoir, Va.

Test Protocols for Backface Deformation:

Statistical Considerations and Assessment
7.0 SUMMARY 7.1 INTRODUCTION

The original Army protocols for backface deformation This chapter evaluates the DOT&E’s first article testing
(BFD) were based on binary (0-1) data. The BFD measure- (FAT) protocol for BFD. For the sake of comparison, the
ment at each location was compared against its specified committee also considers the Army’s legacy test plan. As
threshold, and the outcome was scored as a “1” (failure) if was the case for RTP (Chapter 6), the Army has modified
it exceeded its threshold. This original plan was based on the DOT&E protocol for application to the lightweight
20 shots; if no BFD measurements exceeded their limit, the Advanced Combat Helmet, so the effect of that modification
demonstration was successful. In this sense, it was similar to is also evaluated.
Army’s legacy protocol for resistance to penetration (RTP). Recall from Chapter 4 that BFD is the maximum depth of
The Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) the indentation in the clay headform resulting from a 9-mm-
protocol expanded the number of shots to 240 and used the bullet impact on a mounted helmet. It is measured for each
continuous measurements together with an assumption that shot that does not penetrate the helmet. These BFD measure-
the data are normally distributed. Specifically, the plan comments are compared against corresponding thresholds (or
pared the 90 percent “upper tolerance limits” computed at limits) that depend on shot location: 25.4 mm for front and
90 percent confidence level (90/90 rule) with their thresholds back and 16.0-mm for left, right, and crown. As discussed
for the corresponding location on the helmet. As noted in in Chapter 5, there appears to be no scientific basis for the
Chapter 5, available BFD test data show that the probability choice of these thresholds. Without a scientific basis, the
of BFD exceeding its limits is quite small—on the order committee is limited to an assessment of whether the BFD
of 0.005. As this chapter observes, DOT&E’s BFD proto- distribution for a new helmet is at least as good as that of
col has about a 90 percent chance of accepting the helmet current helmets, in terms of the probability of exceeding the
design even if there is an order of magnitude increase in the specified limits.
exceedance probability (from 0.005 to 0.05). This weakens
the incentive for manufacturers to produce helmets that are
7.2 BACKFACE DEFORMATION FIRST ARTICLE
at least as good as current helmets with respect to BFD. In
ACCEPTANCE TESTING PROTOCOLS AND THEIR
addition, the DOT&E protocols are based on an assumption
PROPERTIES
of normality (a priori untestable) and the complex notion of
an upper tolerance limit. Therefore, Recommendation 7-1
DOT&E Protocol
proposes that DOT&E’s protocol be changed. This change
has the advantage that the new BFD protocol would exactly The DOT&E protocol is based on the suite of 240 shots
parallel the RTP protocol and would be easy for designers discussed in Chapter 5. Data from the 240 shots are divided
and manufacturers to understand and interpret. It is important into two groups corresponding to shot location as follows:
that, after testing, the continuous BFD measurements be
analyzed to assess the actual BFD levels and monitor them 1. 96 measurements from all the shots at front and back
for changes over time. locations, combined across helmet sizes and environ-
ments; and
48

TEST PROTOCOLS FOR BACKFACE DEFORMATION 49
2. 144 measurements from all the shots at left, right, and The left-hand side of this inequality is the number of
crown locations, combined across helmet sizes and (sample) standard deviations, S, between B* and the aver-
environments. age BFD, Y . The conventional term for this quantity is the
estimated “margin” relative to a one-sided specification
To accept the lot, the 90/90 UTLs calculated from the data limit. If the estimated margin is greater than a specified k,
for both groups must be less than their respective thresholds. the acceptance criterion is met.
A 90/90 upper tolerance limit (UTL) is the upper 90 In the statistical and quality control literature, the test
percent confidence bound on the 90th percentile of the plans are developed by controlling the probability of exceed-
underlying distribution. The statistical inference is that, with ing a one-sided specification limit directly from a margin
90 percent confidence, 90 percent of the underlying BFD calculation, rather than backing into this criterion from a
distribution is less than the UTL calculated from the data. UTL. If the calculated margin exceeds a threshold, k, the
The DOT&E protocol calculates the UTLs assuming the demonstration is successful.
BFD measurements have a normal distribution (but different
normal distributions for the two location groups). Finding 7-1. Statistical tolerance limits, which are the basis
For a normal distribution with mean μ and standard devia- of the DOT&E analyses, are complex, and one has to keep
tion σ, the upper 90th percentile is μ + 1.28σ. Because the track of multiple probabilities and inequalities. An equiva-
parameters are unknown, one has to estimate them and also lent, and more conventional and transparent, analysis is to
incorporate the variability in the estimates. It turns out that base the acceptance test on the margin (the standardized
UTL, based on the data, has the form difference between the threshold and the sample mean, as
in Equation 7-1).
UTL = Y + k S
The margin plan parameters (k, n) are analogous to the (c,
Here, Y is the sample mean, S is the sample standard devia- n) parameters for binomial data. For a given plan, operating
tion, and k is a constant that depends on the sample size n characteristic (OC) curves can be calculated that plot the
(number of shots), the confidence level, and the distribution probability of acceptance versus the underlying probability
percentile of interest. The last two are both set at 90 percent of exceeding the limit, B*. By specifying two points on the
by DOT&E, hence the 90/90 rule. The k-factors are derived OC curve, values of n and k can be derived that define a plan
from a non-central t distribution. They have been tabulated that satisfies those two requirements.
and can also be obtained using commercial software.
For the 90/90 criterion, it is clear that the k-factor has to be
Operating Characteristics Curves of DOT&E Protocol
larger than 1.28 to account for the uncertainty in estimating
the parameters μ and σ from the data using Y and S. Figure 7-1 shows the OC curves for the two groups of shot
The 90/90 UTL is applied as follows in DOT&E’s BFD locations: (1) red dashed line corresponds to back and front,
protocol. UTL is a 90 percent upper confidence bound for the and (2) black solid line corresponds to right, left, and crown.
90th percentile, so one can say with 90 percent confidence At the right side of Figure 7-1, the green line shows that,
that at least 90 percent of the distribution is smaller than the if the underlying probability of a BFD “failure” is 0.10 for
UTL (or at most 10 percent of the distribution exceeds the either location group, there is only a 10 percent chance of
UTL). Therefore, the FAT is successful if the UTL is less passing the test. This is the 90/90 criterion that was speci-
than the specified BFD limit B* for each data group. The fied up front, and the plans have the intended property at this
rationale is that if UTL < B*, with 90 percent confidence, B* value. The manufacturer’s risk, and incentive, is read from
exceeds more than 90 percent of the distribution, and there is the left end of the curves. For example, for the extreme left
less than 10 percent of the distribution exceeding B*. (red) line where P(BFD > B*) = 0.005, comparable to the
The same theory underlying the determination of normal proportion of available BFD data that exceed their thresh-
distribution tolerance limits can be used to calculate a 90 olds, the probability of acceptance is close to one; that is, the
percent upper confidence limit on the probability of exceed- manufacturer’s risk is close to zero. The blue lines show that,
ing a specified threshold. This exceedance probability is to have at least a 90 percent chance of passing the acceptance
analogous to the penetration probability for RTP testing. test, the manufacturer must have a BFD exceedance probabil-
The acceptance criterion would then be that this confidence ity of about 0.05 for the back and front locations and about
limit on the exceedance probability be less than 0.10. This 0.055 for the other group. Putting it another way, even if the
criterion is equivalent to the UTL criterion, but more in line exceedance probability is as high as 5 percent or 5.5 percent,
with the 90/90 criterion underlying the DOT&E protocols. manufacturers still have a 90 percent chance of passing the
The acceptance criterion, that Y + k S < B*, can be FAT requirement for BFD.
rewritten as The DOT&E protocol specifies that the plans for both
groups of locations must pass their acceptance tests in
(B* – Y )/S> k. Equation 7.1 order for the overall BFD protocol to be successful. Thus,

7-1
Comparison of DOT&E’s Current Protocols to the Legacy

0.005 0.1
1.0
n k Protocol
0.9 0.9 144 1.44
96 1.47
0.8 n sample size
The legacy protocol was a (c = 0, n = 20) plan based on
0.7
k critical distance
converting BFD failures to binary data. The OC curves of
0.6 such plans were discussed in Chapter 5; in this case, P(BFD
0.5 > B*) is the probability of a BFD failure. Figure 7-3 overlays
0.4 the OC curve for that plan on the OC curves in Figure 7-2.
0.3 To have at least a 90 percent chance of passing the legacy
0.2
plan, the underlying BFD failure probability had to be 0.005
0.1 0.1
or less. The DOT&E protocol relaxes that incentive by about
0.0
00 01 02 03 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
an order of magnitude (even considering that the tolerance
0. 0. 0 . 0 . 0 . 0 . 0 . 0. 0. 0. 0. 0. 0. 0. 0. 0 .
Pr(BFD>B*) limit acceptance test has to be passed by both data sub-
groups). Thus, as was the case for RTP, the DOT&E protocol
FIGURE 7-1 Operating characteristic curves for Director, Opera- is “easier” to pass than the legacy protocol for values of true
tional Test and Evaluation, backface deformation (BFD) protocol BFD failure probabilities less than 0.075 (where the legacy
for the two groups of shot locations: red dashed line corresponds
and the green curves cross).
to back and front and black solid line corresponds to right, left, and
For the BFD data provided to the committee (see
crown. Green and red lines show the acceptance probabilities for
the two groups when P(BFD > B*), the exceedance probabilities, Chapter 5), there were 8 BFD failures in a total of 816 tests.
are 0.10 and 0.005 respectively. Blue line shows the exceedance All of those failures were in one test series, which could
probabilities when the acceptance probability is fixed at 0.9. indicate a systematic problem with that helmet or that test
series. The combined data for the other three helmet tests
yield an upper 90 percent confidence limit on the BFD failure
probability of 0.004. This should be the region of interest for
BFD protocol.
1.0
0.0 0 5 0.045 0 .1 Finding 7-3. Figure 7-3 shows that the DOT&E protocol
0.9 has a 90 percent chance of accepting helmets even when the
0.8
P(acc:96)
P(acc:144)
BFD failure probabilities are an order of magnitude larger
P(acc:both) than what has been achieved by current helmets. This reduces
0.6
the incentive for manufacturers of future helmets to sustain
Pr(acc)
BFD failure probabilities at current levels.
0.4
0.2
0.1
0.0
0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.10 0.11 0.12 0.13 0.14 0.15
Pr(BFD > B*)
FIGURE 7-2 The two operating characteristic (OC) curves in Figure

7-1 overlaid with the overall OC curve of the backface deformation
0 .0 0 5 0 .0 4 5 0.1
1.0
(BFD) protocol (assuming both BFD exceedance probabilities are
0.9
the same).
0.8
P(acc:96)
P(acc:144)
P(acc:both)
0.6
P(acc:0/20)
Pr(acc)
if the underlying BFD failure probability was 0.10 for both 0.4
subgroups of locations, the probability of passing both tests
would be only 0.1 × 0.1 = 0.01, or 1 percent, as shown by 0.2
the green curve in Figure 7-2. On the other hand, even when 0.1
the underlying BFD failure probability is as high as 0.045, 0.0

0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.10 0.11 0.12 0.13 0.14 0.15
manufacturers have a 90 percent chance of passing both tests. Pr(BFD > B*)
Finding 7-2. The use of two BFD tests, rather than a single FIGURE 7-3 Comparison of the three operating characteristic
test, has made the evaluation of the government’s risk and the curves in Figure 7-2 with that of the legacy (0, 20) plan.
manufacturer’s risk and incentive more complicated.

Modified DOT&E Protocol for the Enhanced Combat

Helmet 0.02 0.1
1.0
The Enhanced Combat Helmet (ECH) protocol is based 0.9 0.9
on 48 helmets spanning four helmet sizes and four environ- 0.8

P(acc:48)
ments, with three helmets tested for each combination of 0.7 P(acc: 48, 5 locs)
helmet size and environment. There are 2 shots per helmet, 0.6
totaling 96 shots. One shot is at one of the front/back loca- Pr(acc) 0.5
tions; the other is at one of the left/crown/right locations. 0.4
The same type of 90/90 UTLs are computed based on the 0.3
0.2
assumption of normality; the k-factor for n = 48 and the 90/90
0.1 0.1
criterion is 1.57. The black curve in Figure 7-4 is the OC
0.0
curve for the plan based on 48 shots. The red dashed curve 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.10 0.11 0.12
Pr(BFD > B*)
is the OC curve for both tests passing. This curve shows that
for a manufacturer to have a 90 percent chance of acceptance
FIGURE 7-5 Operating characteristic curves for a single 48-shot
for both location groups, the helmets should have an underly-
plan and for five 48-shot plans. NOTE: BFD refers to backface
ing probability of exceeding the limit, B*, at just less than
deformation.
0.03. As was the case with the previous protocol, this is a
substantially higher BFD failure probability than what cur-
rent helmets have achieved.
four or five subgroups is in line with the patterns of hetero-
geneity that were discussed in Chapter 5.
Finding 7-4. The DOT&E protocol for the ECH has a 90
Under this protocol, the tolerance limit analysis is done
percent chance of accepting helmets that have an order of
on appropriate subsets of either 48 or 96 shots, depending
magnitude larger BFD failure probability than those achieved
on the location and whether the left and right distributions of
by current helmets.
BFD are consistent. Figure 7-5 shows the OC curves for the
situation in which the protocol is applied to a single group
Army’s Modified DOT&E Protocol for the Lightweight of 48 shots, and the combined curve is for the situation of all
Advanced Combat Helmet five groups passing their individual margin tests.
Figure 7-5 shows that for a manufacturer to have a 90
This protocol changed the grouping of the shots in the
percent chance of passing all five acceptance tests by loca-
subsection above as follows: (1) front only, (2) rear only, (3)
tion, the underlying BFD failure probability would have to be
crown only, and (4) right and left sides combined. Before
about 0.02. As was the case with RTP, the Army’s modifica-
combining right and left sides, a pre-test is done to test if the
tion of the DOT&E protocol is considerably more stringent
distributions (mean and variance) for the two sides are differ-
than the DOT&E protocol (Figure 7-2).
ent; the data are combined only if there is not an indication
of significant difference. This separation of the protocol into
7.3 DISCUSSION
Backface Deformation Protocol Based on Binary Data

0.0 0 5 0.0 3 0 .1
1.0
Although the BFD tests are part of DOT&E’s FAT proto-
0.9 0.9
0.8
P(acc:48)
P(acc:48, both)
cols, the committee’s impression is that they do not receive
0.7
the same level of public scrutiny as the RTP protocols. For
0.6
example, they were not mentioned in the communications
Pr(acc) 0.5
between Rep. Slaughter and the Department of Defense.
0.4 There are many possible reasons, some of which are stated
0.3 in the following finding.
0.2
0.1 0.1 Finding 7-5. The rationale behind BFD protocols for FAT is
0.0 difficult to understand for the following reasons:
0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.10 0.11 0.12
Pr(BFD > B*)
• The lack of a scientific connection between BFD

and brain injury dilutes the usefulness of BFD
FIGURE 7-4 Operating characteristic curves for the two location measurements;
groups for the Enhanced Combat Helmet. NOTE: BFD, backface • The choice of BFD thresholds is not based on data
deformation. or scientific studies, so the notion of exceeding the

threshold has no practical or scientific meaning, and this case, it is preferable to use protocols that do not require
their use is limited to comparing a new design of strong parametric assumptions. An additional consideration
helmets with existing ones; and is the need for simplicity and transparency. The use of two
• BFD measures the deformation on clay, which is very different protocols for RTP and BFD data makes it dif-
only an indirect measure of the actual deformation ficult for DoD test designers to develop plans with the same
on helmets. goals and for users to understand their properties.
DOT&E’s legacy protocol was a simple and transparent
There are also several statistical issues related to the plan that was based on binary data. Specifically, each BFD
DOT&E protocols. The data in Chapter 5 indicate an appre- measurement is compared to its location-specific threshold,
ciable difference between the BFD distributions for front and the data are converted to 0-1 outcomes depending on
and rear shots. To address this, DOT&E has recommended whether the observation is below or above the threshold. A
preliminary analyses to decide whether the BFD data can BFD measurement above the threshold leads to a “failure.”
be pooled across groups before conducting the test. These The probability of interest is then the exceedance probability.
added analyses will add substantial complexity to both the
decision process and the properties of the test protocol. They Recommendation 7-1. The Director, Operational Test and
also make it the protocols less transparent. These points are Evaluation, should revert to the more transparent and robust
summarized in the following finding. analysis of backface deformation data based on pass/fail
scoring of each measurement.
Finding 7-6.
• The current DOT&E protocols for BFD data are With such conversion, one can use the same types of pro-
based on upper tolerance limits, which are more dif- tocols as those for RTP. For the BFD data the committee has
ficult to understand than the protocols for RTP based seen, the probability of exceedance is around 0.005, about
on binary data. the same levels as the penetration probabilities estimated
• These protocols are based on the assumption that the from the data. So, if the same considerations in Chapter 5 are
BFD data follow a normal distribution. The computed used to develop the BFD plan, the two protocols are likely
values of the upper tolerance limits are sensitive to to be the same.
this assumption. A natural concern in converting continuous measurements
• The graphical diagnostics that were shown to the to binary data is the loss of statistical efficiency. However,
committee indicate that the normality assumption is recall that the goal of the test protocols is to determine if the
not unreasonable for the limited data sets that have BFD measurements exceed their corresponding thresholds.
been analyzed. However, one should be cautious in The FAT BFD data provided to the committee indicate
assuming that future BFD test measurements will that these thresholds are well in the upper tails of the BFD
always be normally distributed. measurements (see Figures 5-2 and 5-4). The data show that
• The methodology for computing UTLs requires that P(BFD > B*) is less than 0.005. The probability of rejecting
the BFD data across environments, helmet sizes, and helmets (manufacturer’s risk) produced at this level of qual-
across locations (within the two groups) are homo- ity is essentially zero for the test, based on binary data (the
geneous; that is, they have a normal distribution with same as that for protocols based on normal theory). In other
the same mean and variance. DOT&E has proposed: words, the probability of acceptance is essentially 1 for both
(1) conducting preliminary hypotheses tests to deter- protocols. If P(BFD > B*) were to increase to 0.05 (an order
mine if this assumption of homogeneity holds, and of magnitude increase), the probability of rejection under a
(2) pooling the data only for cases where the pre-test binary (17, 240) plan is about 0.10 (see Figure 6-5). This is
suggests the homogeneity assumption is valid. Such very close to the combined normal-theory plan that is cur-
an approach will add substantial complexity to the rently in use (see Figure 7-2).
decision process and, more importantly, to the prop- The current DOT&E protocol is based on two different
erties of the test protocol. plans for the two different location subsets, because they
have different thresholds and also differences in distributions
The replacement of the legacy protocol, based on binary within location subsets.
data, with variable BFD data was presumably driven by effi-
ciency considerations. If the normal distribution assumption Recommendation 7-2. The binary data for the different
is correct, the resulting protocol is much more efficient from location subgroups should be combined into a single back-
a statistical perspective. When the test sample is small, as face deformation protocol.
was the case with the legacy protocol of 20 shots, statistical
efficiency is indeed an important consideration. Converting to a binary protocol and combining the data
However, if the test sample size is large (as is the case with across the locations would mean that the exceedance prob-
240 shots), the concern about efficiency is less critical. In abilities may vary across locations. However, the numerical

study described in Chapter 5 indicates that the OC curves are Recommendation 7-3. The Office of the Director, Opera-
robust to the level of deviations in exceedance probabilities tional Test and Evaluation, and the Services should analyze
that are present with current BFD data. the continuous backface deformation measurements, com-
pute the margins, and track them over time to assess any
changes over time.
Post-Test Analyses
As noted, the loss in efficiency is not a major concern in Recommendation 7-4. Available backface deformation
converting the continuous BFD measurements to 0-1 out- (BFD) data should be used to develop data-based limits
comes. It is, however, important for DOT&E and the Services against which to compare future BFD data, as a replacement
to do post-test analyses of the continuous BFD data, compute for the current legacy ad hoc limits.
the margins, and monitor them to see if there is any trend or
increase or decrease in BFD values over time. Such monitor-
ing is an important part of any test process.

Lot Acceptance Testing
8.0 SUMMARY dard ASQ Z1.4-20081 for selecting lot sample sizes and
acceptance limits (ASQ, 2008). The performance of the
Lot acceptance testing (LAT) is used to ensure that
DOT&E’s LAT protocol is compared to the Army’s original
manufacturers continue to produce helmets that conform
FAT protocol and DOT&E’s FAT protocol, both in terms of
to contract specifications. A random sample of helmets is
resistance to penetration (RTP) and BFD. This chapter also
selected from the production lot, and the helmet shells as
examines the feasibility of helmet-based LAT protocols.
well as hardware are tested according to the LAT protocol.
The number of helmets in the protocols is determined from
an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard, 8.2 LOT ACCEPTANCE TESTING PROTOCOLS
and they vary by lot size. This chapter examines the operat-
ing characteristic (OC) curves for the Director, Operational The Army’s Original Lot Acceptance Testing Protocol
Test and Evaluation’s (DOT&E’s) LAT plans and compares
Table 8-1 shows the Army’s original LAT protocol for
them with first article testing (FAT) protocols in the Army’s
RTP (DoD IG, 2013, p. 6). Note that the number of helmets,
legacy plans and DOT&E’s plans. The OC curves for the
and thus the resulting number of shots, is small.
LAT plans for the different lot sizes can vary a lot, indicating
that the manufacturer’s and government’s risks can be quite
TABLE 8-1 Sample Sizes for the Army’s Historical Lot
different across lot sizes. This is primarily due to the differ-
Acceptance Testing Protocol for a 9-mm RTP Shell
ent sample sizes (number of helmets and number of shots)
as determined from ANSI standard. Further, DOT&E’s FAT Lot Size Sample Size Accept Reject
protocols are considerably less stringent (higher probabilities 4-150 5 shots, 1 helmet 0 1
of acceptance for the OC curves) than their corresponding 151-1,200 5 shots, 1 helmet 0 1
LAT protocols. This is counter to the philosophy that it
1,201-3,200 10 shots, 2 helmets 0 1
should be more difficult for manufacturers to pass FAT than
LAT. This issue can be addressed if DOT&E makes changes SOURCE: DoD IG (2013).
to the (17, 240) FAT protocol as discussed in Chapters 6 and
7. This chapter also proposes using binary data for backface
deformation (BFD) LAT protocols, to make them consistent DOT&E’s Lot Acceptance Testing Protocol
with the recommendations for FAT. Finally, the committee
For DOT&E’s LAT, the sample sizes (numbers of helmets
examines the properties of LAT protocols based on helmets
to be tested) are derived from the ANSI standard ASQ Z1.4-
as the unit of testing.
2008 (ASQ, 2008). Table 8-2 is the helmet LAT matrix from
Appendix A of the DOT&E LAT protocol.2 It provides the
8.1 INTRODUCTION requirements in terms of the number of helmets to be tested,
After a helmet manufacturer has passed FAT and begins
production, LAT is used to ensure that the helmets continue 1The committee notes that the DOT&E protocol does not mention or
to meet contract specifications. This chapter describes the explicitly reference the ANSI standard. The Army purchase description does
DOT&E’s LAT protocol, which is based on the ANSI stan- specify the ANSI standard (U.S. Army, 2012).
2The current DOT&E LAT and FAT protocols are found in Appendix B
of this report.
54

LOT ACCEPTANCE TESTING 55
TABLE 8-2 Helmet Lot Acceptance Testing Matrix

Lot Size Sub-Test Shots Helmets RTP Accept RTP Reject
91-150 9-mm Hardware RTP 6 3 0 1
9-mm Shell RTP/BTD 25 5 0 1
151-500 9-mm Hardware RTP 10 5 0 1
501-1,200 9-mm Hardware RTP 10 5 0 1
1,201-3,200 9-mm Hardware RTP 16 8 1 2
NOTE: BTD, ballistic transient deformation (synonymous with the term BFD used in this report); RTP, resistance to penetration.
SOURCE: DOT&E (2012).
the total number of shots, and the accept/reject criteria by lot how to implement the protocol in Table 8-3. However, for
size. The test plan in Table 8-2 involves a finer division of situations where there are helmets of multiple sizes in a lot,
lot sizes and a larger number of helmets and shots than the Table 8-2 does not specify the order in which the different-
Army’s legacy protocol (Table 8-1). sized helmets should be tested.
The other aspects of DOT&E’s LAT are similar to its FAT
protocol, including range setup, the use of clay as a backing Finding 8-1. The DOT&E LAT protocol does not specify
material and its calibration, the definitions of complete and helmet size, while the FAT protocol specifies testing of four
partial penetrations, and the metrics (RTP and BFD). How- different helmet sizes.
ever, unlike FAT, all tests are conducted only under ambient
conditions. The 1996 report DoD Preferred Methods for Acceptance
Note that the sample sizes for LAT are smaller than FAT of Product, MIL-STD-1916, states:
sample sizes. Further, the protocol varies substantially by lot
sizes: from a sample size of 5 helmet shells (and a total of The product shall be assembled into identifiable lots, sublots,
25 shots) for the smallest lot to a sample size of 13 helmet or batches, or in such other manner as may be prescribed.
shells (and a total of 65 shots) for the largest lot. Similarly, Each lot or batch shall, as far as practicable, consist of units
for hardware testing, the sample sizes vary from 3 helmets of product of a single type, grade, class, size [emphasis
added], and composition, manufactured under essentially
(and 6 shots) to 8 helmets (and 16 shots).
the same conditions, and at essentially the same time. (DoD,
As with FAT, the DOT&E LAT protocol specifies a helmet 1996, p. 9).
test matrix that defines the shot order for each helmet in the
test sequence (Table 8-3). Recommendation 8-1. The protocol established by the
The DOT&E LAT protocol makes no mention of helmet Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, should be revised
size. If lots consist of only one helmet size, then it is clear
TABLE 8-3 Helmet Shot Order Test Matrix for Aramid 9-mm
Helmet Order
LAT Helmet #1 B L Cr F R
LAT Helmet #2 Cr R B L F
LAT Helmet #3 R B Cr L F
LAT Helmet #4 B F L R Cr
LAT Helmet #5 B R F L Cr
LAT Helmet #6 Cr B L F R
LAT Helmet #7 L B Cr F R
LAT Helmet #8 Cr B R F L
LAT Helmet #9 L F R B Cr
LAT Helmet #10 F Cr B L R
LAT Helmet #11 Cr L R B F
LAT Helmet #12 R F B L Cr
LAT Helmet #13 Cr F L B R
NOTE: B, back; CR, crown; F, front; L, left; R, right; LAT, lot acceptance testing.
SOURCE: DOT&E, 2012.

to explicitly state that: (1) it will be applied separately to each 8.3 EVALUATING PERFORMANCE: COMPARISON OF
helmet size; and (2) if the lot contains helmets of multiple OPERATING CHARACTERISTIC CURVES
sizes, the test requirements will be applied according to the
number of helmets of each size in the lot. Resistance to Penetration
This section compares the OC curves of DOT&E’s LAT
The Army’s Hybrid Protocols protocol with DOT&E’s FAT protocol and the Army’s origi-
nal FAT protocol. In comparing LAT and FAT, it is important
As with FAT, the Army has recently introduced modi-
to keep in mind that the manufacturer has already demon-
fied LAT protocols. For penetration, it is a hybrid of the
strated the ability to meet specification requirements via FAT.
Army’s historical LAT protocol and DOT&E’s LAT protocol
The goal of LAT is to assess whether the manufacturer’s
(DOT&E, 2012).
helmets continue to conform, and thus the government is
expected to assume greater risk at this stage.
• In Stage 1, either 5 or 10 shots are taken, depending
Figure 8-1 shows the OC curves for the DOT&E LAT pro-
on the lot size (as specified in Table 8-3). If there is
tocols for the three different lot sizes: 91 to 150 (black), 151
any complete penetration, the test terminates in a
to 500 (red), and 501 to 3,200 (green). The interpretation of
failure. If there are no complete penetrations, the test
an OC curve here is the same as that in Chapter 6: It is a plot
continues to Stage 2.
of the probability of acceptance (passing LAT in this case)
• In Stage 2, passing the LAT RTP requirement is based
on the y axis versus the true penetration probability on the x
on the accept/reject criterion specified in the DOT&E
axis. In Figure 8-1, the OC curves for the different lot sizes
protocol (Table 8-2). As described in the DOT&E
vary considerably and hence can have quite different manu-
protocol, if a penetration is observed, then a new
facturer’s and government’s risks. For example, the blue line
helmet is substituted and tested, and the data from
corresponds to a penetration probability of 0.005 (current
both helmets are counted toward the final accept/
levels where manufacturers are operating), and the prob-
reject determination.
abilities of acceptance for the three curves range from about
0.88 to about 0.99. Thus, the manufacturer’s risks (which
Hardware testing is conducted strictly in accordance with the
equal 1 – probability of acceptance) range from 0.01 to 0.12.
DOT&E protocol (DOT&E, 2012).
Consider now the case where the probability of penetration
For BFD, the Army’s LAT hybrid protocol is based on
is around 0.05—which is an order of magnitude higher. The
the same hybrid test for penetration (DOT&E, 2012). If the
purple lines indicate that the probabilities of acceptance, or
test continues as a result of successful completion of the
government’s risk, vary from about 0.18 to 0.4.
first stage RTP test described above, then passing the LAT
It is difficult to match the OC curves very closely if one
BFD requirement is based on all of the data collected and the
wishes to vary the sample sizes for different lot sizes and,
accept/reject criterion specified for the lot size. As before,
in particular, fix the sample sizes using the ANSI standard. 8-1
if a penetration is observed during the test, a new helmet is
substituted and tested, and the BFD data from both helmets
(excluding the shot that resulted in a penetration) are used
in the BFD calculations. Thus, the Army’s lightweight
advanced combat helmet protocol is virtually the same as
the DOT&E protocol. The only difference is that the light- 1.0
n
25
c
0
weight protocol does not specify a two-stage procedure for 40
65
1
1
lot sizes of 91 to 150 helmets; instead, it simply requires a 75 0.8 n sample size
c acceptance number
percent upper tolerance limit (UTL) at 90 percent confidence
(DOT&E, 2012). 0.6
The committee does not study the properties of these

hybrid protocols in this chapter because their properties 0.4
are complex. Moreover, as noted in Chapters 6 and 7, the

0.2
committee proposes that the DOT&E protocols be modified
rather than addressing the issues through modified two-stage
0.0
protocols.
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
Probability of Penentration
FIGURE 8-1 Operating characteristic curves for resistance to pen-

etration for the three Director, Operational Test and Evaluation,
protocols by lot sizes: 91 to 150 (black), 151 to 500 (red), and 501
to 3,200 (green).

n c n c
1.0 25 0
1.0
25 0
40 1 40 1
65 1 65 1
0.8 20 0 0.8 60 1
240 17
n sample size
n sample size c acceptance number
c acceptance number
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
0.0 0.0
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18
Lot Proportion Defective Probability of Penetration
FIGURE 8-2 Comparison of operating characteristic curves for the FIGURE 8-3 Comparison of operating characteristic curves for
three Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) lot ac- the three DOT&E lot acceptance testing protocols (black, red, and
ceptance testing protocols (black, red, and green) with the Army’s green) with an illustrative (1, 60) first article testing protocol (red).
Legacy first article testing (FAT) protocol (blue) and DOT&E’s
FAT protocol (orange).
Figure 8-2 provides a comparison of the DOT&E LAT restrict the number of shots for the LAT plans to be 60 or
protocols (black, red, and green OC curves) with the Army’s fewer, rather than its current value of 65.
legacy FAT protocol (blue) and DOT&E’s FAT protocol The committee emphasizes that these are just illustrative
(orange). The OC curve for the Army’s legacy FAT protocol discussions and that the committee is not endorsing a par-
is within the range of the curves for DOT&E’s LAT proto- ticular FAT plan for RTP.
cols. However, DOT&E’s FAT protocol (17-out-of-240 pen-
etrations) has a much higher probability of acceptance than Backface Deformation
the LAT protocols in the left end of Figure 8-2. This region
corresponds to penetration probabilities of 0.08 or less, cov- The Army’s historical LAT BFD protocol was also based
ering the current region where manufacturers operate as well on the sample sizes in Table 8-1. For each of the shots, the
as penetration levels more than an order of magnitude higher. BFD was measured and compared to a threshold: 25.4 mm
So, the manufacturer’s risk for the LAT protocols is higher for front and back shots and 16 mm for side and crown shots.
than that for the DOT&E FAT protocol. This is counter to If any of the BFDs exceeded its associated standard, then the
the philosophy that LAT should be easier for manufacturers lot failed. In other words, the BFD LAT protocol, like the
to pass than FAT. BFD FAT protocol, was based on binary outcomes—whether
the BFD measurement exceeded the threshold or not.
Finding 8-2. Some of the DOT&E LATs for penetration DOT&E’s LAT protocol, like its FAT protocol, assesses
are more difficult for manufacturer’s to pass than the FAT helmet BFD performance using statistical tolerance limits
plans. This is contrary to the philosophy that LAT is intended (discussed in Chapter 7). The LAT procedures continue to
to assess whether the manufacturers helmets continue to fix the confidence levels at 90 percent. However, unlike FAT
conform to specifications, and so it should be less stringent where the UTL was also fixed at 90 percent, the UTLs for
than FAT. LAT vary with lot size (and hence with sample size): 80
percent UTL for lot sizes of 501 to 3,200 helmets, 75 percent
As discussed in Chapter 6, the problem illustrated in Fig- UTL for lot sizes of 151 to 500 helmets, and a more compli-
ure 8-2 is with DOT&E’s (17, 240) FAT protocol. For illus- cated two-stage procedure for lot sizes of 91 to 150 helmets.
trative purposes, consider the situation in which the DOT&E The DOT&E LAT protocol states that the “UTL (at 90
FAT is changed to a 1-out-of-60 (1, 60) plan. Figure 8-3 percent confidence) will be calculated by combining the
shows a comparison of the OC curve of this plan with those right and left shot locations if the data from the qualifying
of the current LAT OC curves. The blue curve corresponds First Article Test indicates the data from the side locations
to the (1, 60) FAT plan and, as to be expected, it is very close can be combined for analysis.”3 This procedure is different
to the 1-out-of-65 (1, 65) LAT plan that corresponds to the from the DOT&E FAT protocol in which back and front
largest lot size. If one wanted to insist that LAT plans be
less stringent than the corresponding FAT plans, one could
3DOT&E, 2012, pp. 5-6; reprinted in Appendix B

1.0
and the three DOT&E LAT protocols (solid and dashed reds).
As was the case with penetration, the curves for the three
BFD LAT protocols vary considerably, indicating that they
can have quite different manufacturer’s and government’s
0.8
risks. In particular, the OC curves for the large two lot sizes
(dashed reds) have much higher probabilities of acceptance
Pr[Pass BFD Test(s)]
(OC curves to the right) than that of the small lot size. Thus,
0.6
it is easier to pass the LATs for the larger lot sizes.

Turning to a comparison with the FAT protocols (black
and blue curves), one sees that the Army’s legacy FAT proto-
0.4
col has a very similar performance to that of the LAT curve

for the small lot size of 91 to 150. On the other hand, the
0.2
Original Army FAT Protocol (0/20)

Current DOT&E FAT Protocol (17/240)
OC curve for the DOT&E FAT protocol (blue curve) is much
DOT&E LAT Protocol, N=91-150
DOT&E LAT Protocol, N=151-500 further to the right than the other curves, indicating that the
DOT&E LAT Protocol, N=501-3200
FAT protocol for BFD is much easier to pass than the LAT
0.0
protocols. This conclusion is similar to the one that can be

-5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 made from Figure 8-2 for penetration.
True mean BFD (in standard deviations from UTL criteria)
Finding 8-3. The OC curves of the DOT&E LATs for BFD
FIGURE 8-4 Backface deformation (BFD) operating characteristic vary considerably, indicating that the protocols for the dif-
curves for the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) ferent lot sizes can have quite different manufacturer’s and
first article testing (FAT) protocol in blue, the original Army FAT government’s risks. The protocol for the small lot size is
protocol in black, and the DOT&E lot acceptance testing (LAT) pro- more stringent than the ones for the medium and large lot
tocols in red. NOTE: N is the lot size; UTL, upper tolerance limit. sizes.
Finding 8-4. DOT&E’s LAT protocols for BFD are more

are grouped into one category and left, right, and crown are difficult for manufacturers to pass than its FAT. This mirrors
grouped into another. a similar finding for penetration. This result is contrary to
Figure 8-4 compares the performance of the various the philosophy that LAT should be less stringent than FAT.
DOT&E LAT protocols (one for each lot size) against the
Army’s original (0, 20) FAT protocol and DOT&E’s FAT Backface Deformation Lot Acceptance Testing Protocols
protocol for BFD. These results are based on a simulation Based on Binary Data
study conducted under the following scenario:
As noted in Chapter 7, there are many difficulties with
• The BFD measurements are normally distributed. the use of tolerance limits for the BFD protocols. If DOT&E
• The sample size is held constant in accordance with were to implement Recommendation 7-1 to revert to the use
the lot size requirements of Table 8-1 (which occurs of binary data for BFD for FAT protocols, a similar change
if there are no penetrations). should necessarily be made to LAT protocols. This would
• The standard deviations are fixed as follows: 2.02- simplify many of the additional complexities associated
mm for the front and back locations and 1.58-mm with LAT protocols and combine them across shot loca-
for the side and crown locations. (These values were tions. It would also have the added advantage of using the
derived from actual BFD data). same LAT protocols for penetration and BFD and make the
• The means are varied. The x axis of Figure 8-4 shows BFD protocols easier to understand and more transparent to
the true mean in terms of standardized distance from nonstatisticians.
the respective UTL thresholds. The standardized
distance (true mean minus BFD*) is divided by the 8.4 ANSI STANDARD AND THE ACCEPTANCE
standard deviation. BFD* is the UTL threshold: 25.4- QUALITY LIMIT
mm for front and back shots and 16-mm for side and
crown shots. For example, if the true mean for the Comparison to the ANSI Standard
front location is set at 23.38-mm, the standardized
distance on the x axis in Figure 8-4 will be (23.38- DOT&E’S LAT protocol attempts to be consistent with
mm – 25.4-mm)/2.02-mm = −1. ANSI standard because it designates the helmet shell as both
the unit of sampling and the unit of testing and analysis.
Figure 8-4 shows the OC curves for the original Army However, the protocol also says:
FAT protocol (in black), the DOT&E FAT protocol (blue),

TABLE 8-4 Subtest Acceptance Quality Limits (Approximate)

Sample Size Accept/Reject Criteria
Lot Size Subtest (Number of Helmets) (Number of Helmets) Subtest AQL(%)
91-150 Hardware 3 0/1 4.0
Shell 5 0/1 2.5
151-500 Hardware 5 0/1 2.5
Shell 8 1/2 6.5
501-1,200 Hardware 5 0/1 2.5
Shell 13 1/2 1.0
1,201-3,200 Hardware 8 1/2 6.5
Shell 13 1/2 4.0
If a perforation [complete penetration] occurs, no additional This lack of consistency in the current protocol—whether
shots will be taken on the perforated helmet. The perforated a shot or a helmet is the actual unit of test—makes it chal-
helmet will count against the accept/reject criteria in Ap- lenging to understand and interpret its properties. Further,
pendix A. To complete the test matrix,4 a new (untested) as described below, it is difficult to connect the test sample
helmet will be tested using the full 9mm V0 shot sequence for
sizes to the ANSI standard quality metrics.
the helmet that was perforated. Valid penetration and BTD
data from both helmets will be used for analysis (DOT&E,
2012, p. 5).5 Determining the Acceptance Quality Limit
The result of this requirement is that, if a penetration occurs, The helmet sample sizes in Table 8-1 are derived from the
the number of helmets sampled will not match the sample ANSI standard special inspection level6 S-2 for the hardware
size in Table 8-1 or the ANSI standard. Substituting for the and special inspection level S-3 for the shell.7,8 The DOT&E
penetrated helmet is a conservative approach, in the sense protocol alludes to this indirectly by saying, “Helmet testing
that additional data are collected when a perforation is is unique in that [it requires] two to three disparate destruc-
observed. However, it introduces an additional level of com- tive tests. . . . The total number of helmets allocated to . . .
plexity into the test, and it makes it difficult to quantify and tests closely reflects the quantities required for . . . sampling
compare test protocol performance in terms of OC curves. at either the S-2 or S-3 levels” (DOT&E, 2012, p. 5). Table
A testing regime strictly implemented per the ANSI stan- 8-4 provides the acceptance quality limit (AQL) for each of
dard would simply fail any helmet that experienced a single the sub-tests assuming the tested helmets are not perforated.
penetration (out of five shots to the helmet). No additional As such, they are approximations of the actual AQLs for the
helmets would be substituted in order to complete the total LAT protocol.9
number of shots indicated in Table 8-1. Under this testing The DOT&E protocol goes on to say that the helmet
protocol, the helmet is the unit of testing and analysis. As sample sizes are based on a “4% acceptable quality level”
such, the helmet is subject to a multi-shot test, and it either or AQL10 (DOT&E, 2012, p. 6), where “the total number
passes if no penetrations are observed, or it fails as soon as of helmets allocated to penetration and BTD tests closely
one penetration is observed. (Note that this is similar to the reflects the quantities required for the S-4 sampling level”
helmet-level test for FAT that was proposed at the end of (DOT&E, 2012, p. 5) of ANSI/ASQ Z1.4-2008 (ASQ, 2008).
Chapter 6.) This is not correct, in the sense that the quality of shells in the
6Per
Finding 8-5. The DOT&E LAT protocol does not precisely the ANSI standard, special inspection levels “may be used where
relatively small sample sizes are necessary and large sampling risks can or
follow the ANSI/ASQ Z1.4-2008 testing protocol that calls
must be tolerated” (ASQ, 2008, p. 5).
for sampling a fixed number of items out of a lot. It requires 7Using Table II-A of ANSI/ASQ Z1.4-2008, convert the helmet shell
testing of additional helmets when penetrations occur. Fur- sample sizes in Table 8-1 to the sample size code letters and then use Table
ther, the shot is the actual unit of testing, despite the fact that I to see that the lot size and letter combinations correspond to the S-2 and
sample sizes are stated in terms of helmets. S-2 inspection levels.
8The “Shots” sample sizes in Table 8-1 do not correspond to any of the
single sampling plan sample sizes in ANSI/ASQ Z1.4-2008. For example,

4Here the term “test matrix” does not refer to Table 8-1. Rather it refers see Table II-A in ASQ (2008).
to a second matrix that specifies the shot order for each helmet. 9These AQLs are approximate because they are derived from the ANSI
5The committee notes that the DOT&E FAT protocol is silent on what standard that assumes a fixed sample size, unlike the DOT&E protocol in
should be done in the event that a helmet perforation occurs during testing. which the sample size can vary if a perforation is observed.
However, the lightweight ACH purchase description matches the DOT&E 10Note that ANSI/ASQ Z1.4-2008 defines AQL as the “Acceptance Qual-
LAT requirement both to substitute a new helmet if a perforation occurs and ity Limit.” It explicitly states, “the use of the abbreviation AQL to mean
to use all of the data (U.S. Army, 2012). Acceptable Quality Level is no longer recommended” (ASQ, 2008, p. 8).

TABLE 8-5 Sample Sizes per ANSI Standard ASQ Z1.4- roughly three to six times larger than what is specified in the
2008 to Achieve an AQL of 0.4 Percent current DOT&E protocol. However, the sample size of 32
Accept/Reject helmets for lots up to 500,000 helmets is generally smaller
General Sample Size Criteria than the total number of helmets required for all the LAT tests
Inspection (Number of (Number of as specified in the lightweight helmet purchase description
Level Lot Size Helmets) Helmets) (see the table on p. 76 of U.S. Army [2012], reproduced in
S-4 1,201-3,200 32 0/1 Table 8-6 below). These values range from 28 for a lot of
S-4 3,201-10,000 32 0/1 500 helmets or less to 44 for lots of 1,201 to 3,200 helmets.
S-3 35,001-150,000 32 0/1
S-3 150,001-500,000 32 0/1 8.5 USING THE HELMET AS THE UNIT OF TESTING
S-4 500,001+ 125 1/2
Helmet-Based Lot Acceptance Testing Protocols
SOURCE: Adapted from ASQ (2008).
Chapter 6 (Section 6.6) proposed that protocols for future
helmet designs be based on helmets as the units of test rather
helmets tested for hardware is unknown, and the hardware than shots. Such a test design has the advantage of following
quality of the helmets whose shells are tested is unknown. the ANSI standard more closely. In this section, the commit-
Thus, while it is clear that for any lot the subtest AQLs are tee pursues this topic in the context of LAT.
approximately those given in Table 8-4, the AQL of the Table 8-6 shows the number of lightweight Advanced
helmets can be anywhere between the largest subtest AQL Combat Helmets required for LAT under the current pur-
(because different types of defects tend to occur within the chase description. Note that the total, including the contin-
same helmets) and the sum of the AQLs for all the subtests gency, is close to (or more than) the 32 helmets required for
(because different types of defects tend to occur on different a 0.4 AQL test (cf. Table 8-4). Thus, if the various tests can
helmets). be appropriately combined, then a helmet-based test at 0.4
AQL is feasible within the current contract requirements.
Finding 8-6. The AQL at the helmet level is unknown, Similarly, if two shots were required per helmet (say, consist-
despite the current DOT&E protocol that suggests helmets ing of a combination of two shell shots or one shell shot and
are being tested to a 4 percent AQL. Although the AQL for one hardware shot)—rather than five shots per helmet shell
the helmet shell and hardware can be specified (see Table and two per hardware test—then the total number of shots
8-4), it is not clear how these subsystem AQLs combine at the is 64, which is less than the combined number of shell and
helmet level, and, further, the AQL associated with helmet hardware shots currently required for lots greater than 500
BFD performance is not assessed. helmets. This suggests that a helmet-based test is feasible
within current resources.
The 2013 DoD Inspector General report Advanced Com- To illustrate the concept, the committee studied the prop-
bat Helmet Technical Assessment found, “In selecting the erties of a helmet-based LAT using simulation. The frame-
LAT RTP requirement of 4 percent AQL . . . DOT&E did work for the simulation study was as follows:
not consider selecting an AQL that was based on the safety
criticality of the helmet” (DoD IG, 2013, p. 13). The report • 32 helmets are shot at three random locations, two
further notes that the Defense Contract Management Agency of the standard five locations (front, back, right, and
(DCMA) uses a 0.4 AQL for personal protective equipment left sides, and the crown) and one on hardware.
and that manufacturers are currently working to a 0.4 percent • Each non-hardware shot is evaluated for whether it
AQL (DoD IG, 2013). perforates and whether the resulting BFD is less than
Table 8-5 provides the sample sizes necessary to achieve the required threshold and the hardware test is evalu-
an AQL level of 0.4 percent. However, during presentations to ated for perforation.
the committee on June 17, 2013, DCMA stated that it would • Hence, in this illustrative test, each helmet is subject
defer to Program Executive Office Soldier and DOT&E for to five binary-outcome tests, and each helmet is
setting the appropriate AQL for combat helmets.11 scored as a pass if all five tests are passed or as a fail
otherwise.
Finding 8-7. As Table 8-5 shows, the required sample size
(in terms of helmet shells) to achieve an AQL of 0.4 is Making the BFD test a binary pass/fail is consistent with
Recommendation 7-1 and consistent with past Army testing
11CIayton Maddio, Soldier Systems Sector Integrator, DCMA Opera- practice.
tions Directorate, noted during an informal discussion with the committee Figure 8-5 shows the OC curves for this illustrative hel-
on June, 17, 2013, that, while DCMA Critical Safety Items (CSI) policy is met-based LAT protocol (red) compared to the DOT&E LAT
stated with an AQL of 0.4 percent, DCMA policy permits the customer to
decide the AQL for CSI items, thus overriding DCMA Policy.
protocol (blue). To do the comparison, the committee calcu-

TABLE 8-6 Lot Acceptance Testing Helmet Sampling Rate as Specified in the Lightweight Advanced Combat Helmet
Purchase Description
Lot Acceptance Testing (Number of Helmets Required)
Static Pull Barcode
9-mm RTP/ 9-mm RTP 17-grain Blunt Edging Paint Test (Ref. Pad Water Label/
Lot Size BTD (Shell) (Hardware) FSP V50 Impact Adhesion Adhesion System) Absorbancy Marking Contingency Total
500 8 5 2 2 1 2 1 ~ ~ 7 28
501-1,200 13 5 2 3 2 3 1 ~ ~ 8 37
1,201-3,200 13 8 3 3 3 4 1 ~ ~ 9 44
NOTE: BTD, ballistic transient deformation; FSP, fragment simulating projectile; RTP, resistance to penetration.
SOURCE: U.S. Army (2012).
lated a combined OC curve for the DOT&E LAT tests. This limits in each of the five locations (where the assumption was
was accomplished by simulating the appropriate number of made that the side shots could not be combined) had to be
shell and hardware shots, each at the same probability of pen- less than the required thresholds with 90 percent confidence.
etration, and also simulating the BFDs associated with the It is important to note that these combined OC curves are
shell impacts. A helmet passed the LAT if the number of shell based on the assumption that, if there is a change in the x
penetrations did not exceed their accept/reject requirements axis, that change is reflected in the probability of test failure
and the hardware penetrations did not exceed their accept/ across all tests in the LAT.
reject requirements and all of the BFD upper tolerance limits The main points of Figure 8-5 are that (1) the curves for
were within requirements. For example, for a manufacturer the illustrative helmet-based test are similar to the current
to pass the DOT&E Combined LAT protocol for lot sizes DOT&E LAT in many respects, and (2) varying the AQL
1,201 to 3,200, there could be no more than 1 penetration allows for tailoring the performance of the helmet-based test.
out of 65 shots on 13 helmets and no hardware failures in
16 shots on 8 helmets, and the 80 percent upper tolerance Finding 8-8. Implementing a helmet-based LAT in place of
the current DOT&E protocol is feasible from the perspec-
tive of the required testing resources, and such a test can be
appropriately tailored by setting the AQL.
1.0
Helmet-level LAT Protocol (AQL 0.4): n=32, a/r=0/1

DOT&E Combined LAT Protocols: N=91-150
Adding Switching Rules
According to ANSI/ASQ Z1.4-2008, “AQL is the quality
0.8

level that is the worst tolerable process average when a con-
tinuing series of lots is submitted for acceptance sampling”
0.6
(ASQ, 2008, p. 2). The standard goes on to say,

Pr(Pass LAT)
The purpose of this standard is, through the economic and

0.4
psychological pressure of lot non-acceptance, to induce a

supplier to maintain a process average at least as good as
the specified AQL while at the same time providing an up-
per limit on the consideration of the [government’s] risk of
0.2
accepting occasional poor lots. The standard is not intended

as a procedure for estimating lot quality or for segregating
lots (p. 3).
0.0
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10

Further, it is important to note that the ANSI standard
True Pr(individual test fails) specifically says,
FIGURE 8-5 Operating characteristic (OC) curves for the illustra- The concept of AQL only applies when an acceptance
tive helmet-based lot acceptance testing (LAT) protocol in red sampling scheme with rules for switching between normal,
compared to the OC curve for the combined resistance to penetra- tightened and reduced inspection and discontinuance of
tion and backface deformation for the Director, Operational Test sampling inspection is used. These rules are designed to
and Evaluation (DOT&E) LAT protocol in blue. NOTE: AQL, encourage suppliers to have process averages consistently
acceptance quality limit. better than the AQL. If suppliers fail to do so, there is a

FIGURE 8-6 Switching rules from ANSI/ASQ Z1.4-2008. SOURCE: ASQ (2008).
high probability of being switched from normal inspection Finding 8-9. The DOT&E LAT protocol does not specify
to tightened inspection where lot acceptance becomes more the use of switching procedures. Further, the lightweight
Figuer
difficult. Once 8-6, fixed image
on tightened inspection, unless corrective ACH purchase description explicitly states that switching
action is taken to improve product quality, it is very likely procedures will not be used (DOT&E, 2012). As a result, the
that the rule requiring discontinuance of sampling inspection
motivation inherent in the ANSI standard for manufacturers
will be invoked (p. 2).
to maintain a process average at least as good as the speci-
fied AQL is not incorporated into current LAT procedures.
Figure 8-6 illustrates how the switching rules work. A
manufacturer starts under the normal regime. Should the
With the current DOT&E LAT protocol, it is difficult to
manufacturer fail one or two of five consecutive lots, then it
implement switching rules because they must be applied at
is switched to tightened rules, which make it more difficult
the subtest level, which introduces a level of complexity in
to pass the LAT. If five consecutive lots are accepted under
terms of record keeping that may be burdensome. However,
the tightened rules, then the manufacturer is switched back
to the normal regime. On the other hand, if five consecutive
lots are not accepted under the tightened regime, then the
manufacturer must re-qualify via FAT. TABLE 8-7 Switching Rules for Lot Sizes of 1,200 to
If a manufacturer under the normal regime has 10 con- 3,200 with Acceptance Quality Limit of 0.4
secutive lots accepted, then it is switched to reduced rules Accept/Reject
that make it easier to pass the LAT. However, as soon as it Sample Size Criteria
(Number of (Number of
fails a lot while under the reduced rules, the manufacturer is
Switching Rule Lot Size Helmets) Helmets)
switched back to the normal regime.
For example, Table 8-7 shows the switching rules for lot Normal 1,201-3,200 32 0/1
sizes of 1,200 to 3,200 with an AQL of 0.4. Tightened 3,201-10,000 50 0/1
Reduced 35,001-150,000 13 0/1
SOURCE: Adapted from ASQ (2008).

with the application of a helmet-based test, the implementa- DoD (Department of Defense). 1996. Department of Defense Test Method
Standard: DoD Preferred Methods for Acceptance of Product. MIL-
tion of switching rules is more feasible.
STD-1916. Department of Defense, Washington, D.C.
DoD IG (Department of Defense Inspector General). 2013. Advanced
Recommendation 8-2. If the Director of Operational Test Combat Helmet Technical Assessment. DODIG-2013-079. Department
and Evaluation implements a helmet-based protocol, it of Defense, Washington, D.C.
should specify the use of switching procedures so that manu- DOT&E. 2012. Standard for Lot Acceptance Ballistic Testing of Military
Combat Helmets. Memorandum from J. Michael Gilmore, Director.
facturers are motivated to maintain a process average at least
May 4, 2012. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Washington, D.C.
as good as the specified acceptance quality limit. [reprinted in Appendix B]
U.S. Army. 2012. Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) Purchase Description,
8.6 REFERENCES Executive Office—Soldier, Fort Belvoir, Va.
ASQ (American Society for Quality). 2008. American National Standard
Sampling Procedures and Tables for Inspection by Attributes. ANSI/
ASQ Z1.4-2008. American Society for Quality, Milwaukee, Wisc.

Characterization Tests for the Advanced

Combat Helmet and Future Helmets
9.0 SUMMARY Chris Moosmann from DOT&E provided additional

information on the task during a presentation to the commit-
The statement of task to the committee includes the
tee on March 21-22, 2013. He said:
following: “Evaluate the scope of characterization testing
relative to the benefit of the information obtained.” The term
• ACH (Advanced Combat Helmet) characterization
“characterization” is broad and is used in different ways
was not done prior to release of the helmet test
in different contexts. However, the Office of the Director,
protocol;
Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) provided addi-
• DOT&E and PEO (Program Executive Office) Sol-
tional information to elaborate on this task. Most of the
dier have committed to characterize ACH helmets;
issues raised by DOT&E that are relevant to this portion of
• DOT&E indicated that the ECH (Enhanced Combat
the statement of task are addressed in this chapter. The com-
Helmet) would also be characterized;
mittee also describes additional characterization tests that are
• DOT&E will use the results of characterization to
needed. Some of these are intended for future helmet designs.
determine whether any changes to current protocol
A number of these additional tests have been discussed in
standards are appropriate; and
earlier chapters and are repeated here because they can be
• DOT&E/program offices will consider characteriza-
viewed as being related to characterization studies. These
tion of new future designs during developmental
include the following: evaluating helmet performance across
testing to assess any need for protocol changes.1
a broader range of, and more realistic, threats; assessing
the effect of aging; understanding the relationship between
Mr. Moosmann’s presentation noted that the following
helmet offsets and helmet protection; and conducting gauge
questions will be addressed as part of the above character-
repeatability and reproducibility (R&R) studies to under-
ization testing:
stand the different sources of variation in the test process
and possibly providing opportunities to reduce some of the 1. What is the lower confidence limit (90% confidence) on
variation. This chapter also includes a discussion of current P(nP) as measured with n shots?
V50 testing and an alternative methodology as well as a 2. What percent of the population (90% confidence) meets
discussion of industrial practices in characterizing process the backface deformation (BFD) requirement by loca-
capability. tion?
3. Do shot location, helmet size, environment, and shot
sequence affect P(nP) or BFD?
9.1 INTRODUCTION 4. What effect do shot location, helmet size, and shot se-
The committee’s task to “evaluate the scope of charac- quence have on the slope of the ballistic characterization
curve?
terization testing relative to the benefit of the information
5. What are the V0 and V50 velocities associated with the
obtained” was added after the committee had started its
fragment simulating projectiles (FSPs) and right circular
deliberations, apparently in response to issues raised in the cylinders (RCCs) currently used during helmet testing?
Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General Report
(DoD IG, 2013).
1ChrisMoosmann, Live Fire Test & Evaluation, DOT&E, “DOT&E Is-

sues Update,” presentation to the committee on March 21, 2013.
64

CHARACTERIZATION TESTS FOR THE ADVANCED COMBAT HELMETS AND FUTURE HELMETS 65
6. What BFDs are associated with FSPs/RCCs currently Similarly, existing data for ACH can be used to answer
used during helmet testing? Questions 3 and 4 above. The suite of resistance-to-pene-
7. How do helmets perform against foreign threats?2 (slide 5) tration (RTP)/BFD tests for FAT (see Table 4-1) consists
of a designed “full factorial experiment” with three factors:
The presentation requested that “the committee review helmet size (Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large), condition-
and comment on the scope of characterization testing relative ing environment (ambient, hot, and cold temperatures, and
to the benefit of the information obtained and the resources seawater), and shot location (front, back, left, right, crown).
required to do so.” In particular, While the procurement decision rules are based on aggre-
gated data, the full data provide the necessary information
I. Are there additional questions that should be addressed to characterize differences among helmet size, shot location,
(threats, conditions, etc.)?
and environment, as specified in Questions 3 and 4 above. In
II. Should characterization address issues such as durability
fact, Chapter 5 (Section 5.3) reports some answers to these
and aging (“shelf life”)?
III. Should there be a common (minimum) set of questions all questions from the committee’s analyses of FAT and LAT
characterization efforts should address and what should data that were made available to it. Moreover, the “cluster-
those include?3 (slide 6) ing” analysis already being done by DOT&E and the Institute
for Defense Analysis is aimed at characterizing exactly these
The rest of this chapter is aimed at identifying the relevant differences.4,5
aspects of characterization, addressing the questions posed The current goal of the clustering analysis is to do pre-
by DOT&E, and providing a general discussion of industrial liminary tests to see if the data can be pooled across the
practices involved in studying process capability. different factors (environment, locations, etc.), and the com-
mittee has noted in Chapter 7 that such preliminary tests are
not to be recommended. However, the analyses to estimate
9.2 CHARACTERIZATION OF THE ADVANCED the differences among the factors and to monitor them over
COMBAT HELMET USING EXISTING TEST DATA time (Questions 3 and 4 above) are certainly important and
For the ACH, existing test data from first article testing should be continued.
(FAT), lot acceptance testing (LAT), and other sources can V50 testing, raised in Question 5, is discussed in Section
be used to answer most of the questions posed above by 9.4 in this chapter. Regarding Question 6, the committee
DOT&E. In fact, Question 1 was the subject of Recom- does not know if data from fragment simulating projectiles
mendation 6-3 in Chapter 6. It notes that upper confidence (FSPs) and right circular cylinders (RCCs) are stored from
bounds (UCBs) should be computed and reported based on past FAT studies for ACH. If they are, Question 6 can also
the observed number of penetrations in FAT. In addition to be readily answered.
characterizing the actual penetration probability, the UCBs The issue of testing helmets against other threats has
can be used to monitor how the penetration levels vary over been discussed extensively in the report. The committee will
time and among manufacturers. The same kinds of analyses return to this point in Section 9.3.
should also be done with LAT data to monitor a manufac- ACH test data can also be used to characterize many other
turer’s performance over time. aspects of helmet performance. For example, FAT and LAT
A similar recommendation was made in relation to Ques- data can be compared over time to find trends and patterns
tion 2 in Chapter 7. Recommendation 7-3 states that the BFD associated with the production process for an individual man-
measurements (from FAT) should be analyzed to determine ufacturer. Data can also be compared across manufacturers
the margins (number of standard deviations between the to detect possible differences across manufacturers. Further,
mean BFD and its threshold) and tracked over time to assess data from the drop-tests can be used to track performance
changes. Since the BFD thresholds lack scientific basis, it is of manufacturers over time in terms of blunt-force trauma.
better to track changes in the margins or examine the exceed-
ance probabilities at multiple thresholds. It is straightforward 9.3 EXPANDED CHARACTERIZATION REQUIRING
to compute the point estimates and associated confidence ADDITIONAL DATA
intervals (or upper bounds) for the exceedance probabili-
ties. Again, similar analyses should be done with LAT data DOT&E also asked if there were additional topics that
to track a manufacturer over time. Recommendation 7-4 should be part of its characterization studies. The committee
suggests replacing the current ad hoc threshold for BFD (at describes selected topics here. This class of characterization
different locations) using data-based limits obtained from
historical BFD test data. Developing such limits can be 4Janice Hester, Research Staff Member, Institute for Defense Analysis,
viewed as a characterization study. “DOT&E Helmet Test Protocols Overview: Statistical Considerations and
Concerns,” presentation to the committee on January 25, 2013.
5Laura Freeman, Research Staff Member, Institute for Defense Analysis,
2Ibid. “Protocol Analyses and Statistical Issues Related to Testing Methodologies,”
3Ibid. presentation to the committee on March 21, 2013.

studies is intended to explore the properties of the helmet that many soldiers change the padding locations or
beyond the current DOT&E protocol. Several of these sug- remove some of the pads from their helmets in the
gestions are of a longer-term nature and intended for the field. Understanding the differences between test-
ECH and newer generations of helmets rather than the ACH. ing results and what would be experienced by the
soldier would help quantify relevance of the testing.
• Evaluate helmet performance for a variety of dif- One option for such a characterization study would
ferent threats. As noted in Chapter 3, the primary be to obtain samples of common pad configura-
focus of DOT&E’s (and the Army’s) test protocols tions in the field and perform the standard RTP and
is gunfire threats. Recommendations 3-1, 3-2, and BFD testing. This would allow better connection
3-5 emphasize the importance of expanding the test of results to soldier experience and may suggest
profile to cover emerging threats as well as more real- additional recommendations or requirements for
istic blunt-impact threats. For example, improvised soldiers.
explosive devices (IEDs) have dramatically different • Evaluate the relationship between helmet offsets and
distributions of fragment sizes and velocities com- helmet protection. With the availability of 5 headform
pared to those from artillery. Recommendation 3-3 sizes, it should be straightforward to characterize
asks DoD to reassess helmet requirements for cur- differences in BFD by location as a function of
rent and potential future fragment threats, especially helmet offset. It is widely assumed that increased
those energized by blast. Such a reassessment would offset provides improved protection through reduced
include examining redundancy in the current profile BFD magnitude. (However, Figure 5-3 in Chapter 5
of threats, such as the 2-grain versus 4-grain, and may shows that this may not be the case.) Quantifying
lead to elimination of some tests. Resources can then this improvement, if it exists, could lead to changes
be redistributed to cover a wider range of realistic to helmet assignment or a reassessment of the trade-
ballistic threats, including larger mass artillery frag- offs between functionality and protection.
ments, bullets other than 9-mm, and IED fragments. • Evaluate the aging characteristics of the helmets to
A comprehensive examination of threat profiles determine if there is any meaningful degradation of
would involve considerable additional resources and the protection performance of the helmets over time.
consist of much more than characterization studies. An approach to this testing might be to store some of
Nevertheless, the committee believes that this is a the helmets from a given lot and perform a test simi-
very important direction for future efforts by DoD. lar to FAT testing on helmets of different ages. For
• Evaluate the sources of variation in the test process. example, if helmets were generally thought to be used
As noted in Chapter 4, there are many sources of for 2 years before they were replaced, then a testing
variation in the test process and test measurements. regimen could be established that tests helmets at
Recommendation 4-2 recommends that the DoD ages 0, 6, 12, 18, 24, and 30 months to determine
conduct formal gauge R&R studies to understand if there are changes in protection performance. An
the different sources of variation (test methodology, alternative would be to develop an accelerated testing
helmets, use of clay, headforms, etc.) and use the program in which the helmets are exposed to stressful
results to improve the test process. The committee environmental or to use conditions that would simu-
judges that this should be a high priority, given the late accelerated aging. This testing would provide
high costs of testing and the benefits to be gained reassurances that the helmets are not degrading over
from such an R&R study. time.
• Evaluate helmet performance at selected areas of the
helmet not currently tested. The test protocols do not Program and oversight personnel can identify other poten-
assess the helmet in some regions, such as edges and tially important characterization tests that would provide
around the ear covering. While it may be reasonable additional information about a helmet’s protective capabili-
to exclude them in the formal test process, it is still ties. DOT&E’s charge to the committee specifically asked
of importance to understand the range of protection for an evaluation of “the scope of characterization testing
afforded at these helmet locations. Potential dif- relative to the information obtained.” The committee does
ferences in manufacturing choices could be better not have the necessary information or the expertise to do
understood and might lead to improvements in over- a cost-benefit analysis. On the other hand, the Department
all design. of Defense has the relevant expertise and information as
• Evaluate performance for different helmet pad con- to which information is important for soldier safety in the
figurations. Current testing procedures test the five battlefield. DoD is better equipped to make the decision on
locations with padding directly in the line of fire of which tests should be done, how to fund them, and whether
the shot (crown, front, and back) or in a gap between funds should be redistributed from current test resources for
pads (left and right). Anecdotal evidence suggests important characterization tests.

Chris Moosmann’s presentation to the committee6 listed The V50 testing procedure under MIL-STD 662F is as
some possible studies that are being planned to charac- follows:
terize the ACH (from different vendors) and compare its
performance with the lightweight ACH. If the ACH will no • A first round is shot with a striking velocity that is
longer be procured (only current manufacturers who have approximately 75 to l00 feet per second (ft/s) above
passed FAT will produce them), then it is not wise to invest the minimum V50 required per specification. (Previ-
considerable additional resources to characterize the ACH. ous V50 testing on comparable helmets could also
New tests and characterization studies should focus on new provide a good starting velocity.)
helmet designs. • If the first round results in a complete penetration,
When DoD adopts new helmets with changes to the the velocity of the second round is decreased by 50
design (such as lighter weight and added mobility), it will to 100 ft/s from the velocity of the first round. If it
be necessary to reevaluate the test protocols. For example, results in no or partial penetration, the velocity is
it may not be possible for manufacturers to produce lighter increased by 50 to 100 ft/s.
helmets at current levels of penetration. • In subsequent shots, the velocity is increased or
decreased, as applicable, until one partial and one
Recommendation 9-1. When combat helmets with new complete penetration is obtained.
designs are introduced, the Department of Defense should • After obtaining at least one partial and one complete
conduct appropriate characterization studies and cost-benefit penetration, the velocity is increased or decreased in
analyses to evaluate the design changes before making deci- increments of 50 ft/s. Firing is continued until suf-
sions. It is not advisable to automatically apply the same ficient partial and complete penetrations are obtained
standard (such as the 90/90 rule or others) when these tests to estimate V50 by taking the average of the velocities
could potentially be across different protective equipment corresponding to an equal number of the highest par-
(body armor, helmets, etc.), different numbers of tests (e.g., tial and the lowest complete penetration, as specified
96 tests for the enhanced combat helmet, 240 tests for the in the contract (DoD, 1997, p. 10).7 Typically 8-14
advanced combat helmet), or over time. shots are used.
The committee notes that the protocol allows multiple shots

9.4 V50 TESTING
per helmet, but it does not explicitly specify a maximum
number of shots or shots per helmet: “If a valid V50 cannot
Description
be obtained with a single finished shell, the V50 will continue
V50 refers to the “the velocity at which complete penetra- on an additional finished shell(s)” (IOP PED 003, Paragraph
tion and incomplete penetration are equally likely to occur” 5.2.1.1).
(DoD, 1997, p. 3). That is, V50 is the median of the velocity-
penetration distribution or curve. (This is analogous to dose- Finding 9-1. The current V50 testing protocol does not
response studies that arise in pharmaceutical studies.) This clearly specify the maximum number of shots per helmet.
theoretical quantity is currently estimated from a series of
ballistic tests using the methodology of Military Standard During the committee’s discussions with representatives
(MIL-STD) 662F (DoD, 1997). of PEO Soldier8 (Lozano, 2013) and DOT&E, the following
V50 testing is an important component of the overall reasons were given for collecting V50-related data:
DOT&E protocol. The estimated value of V 50 is used
informally to track and compare helmet performance. The • It is a commonly understood metric that characterizes
nature of the test suite and the subsequent data analysis are the performance of the helmet, both in the United
quite different from the RTP and BFD protocols. For these States and in member countries of the North Atlantic
reasons, the committee considers V50 testing to be a part of Treaty Organization.
characterization. • It is easier to estimate than potentially more relevant
Table 4-1 (in Chapter 4) shows the test matrix and require- velocity quantities such as V0 or V10.
ments for V50 testing under DOT&E’s FAT protocol. It is per-
7This
formed for 2-, 4-, 16-, 17-, and 64-grain threats as well as a estimation methodology is similar to the NATO Standardization
small arms threat (if required). The Army’s lightweight ACH Agreement (STANAG) 2920, Ballistic Test Method for Personal Armour
Materials and Combat Clothing, promulgated 31 July 2003. STANAG 2920
Purchase Description (which also specifies MIL-STD-622) requires an even number of at least six shots, half of which perforate and half
further requires that helmets achieve a minimum V50 for each of which do not, and all of which are have velocities of within 40 meters per
of the fragmentation threats (U.S. Army, 2012). second. Then the V50 is estimated as the mean velocity of the shots meeting
these conditions (NSA, 2003).
8Frank J. Lozano, Product Manager, Soldier Protective Equipment, “Set-
6Chris
Moosmann, Live Fire Test & Evaluation, DOT&E, “DOT&E Is- ting the Specifications for Ballistic Helmets,” presentation to the committee
sues Update,” presentation to the committee on March 21, 2013. on April 25, 2013.

• It can be useful for comparing helmet performance Understanding the ability of a current product to conform
between manufacturers and over time. to production requirements is a common aspect of indus-
• PEO Soldier uses V50 time series data as a leading trial practice and product improvement and is often called
indicator of manufacturer process degradation. capability analysis (Bothe, 1997; Pyzdek and Keller, 2003).
It encompasses characterization of process stability as well
V50 values are used informally. More structured analyses as margin on performance relative to product requirements
could be done to compare V50 estimates among manufactur- (Hoerl and Snee, 2012). It is applicable to understanding
ers, over time, and among environments. Another potential product conformance internal to a company and for external
characterization analysis would be to investigate the relation- suppliers, customers, and users. Typically, formal product
ship between V50 and fragment grain size. requirements such as acceptable failure rates and specifica-
tion limits are based on understanding customer needs. In
the helmet procurement process, this would likely be based
Additional V50 Testing and Characterization Analyses
on data collected during developmental testing. Developing
The current goal of V50 testing is to estimate a single point a stronger connection to what is possible, given current hel-
(the median) on the velocity-penetration curve. In the com- met manufacturing capability, would allow the opportunity
mittee’s view, it would be beneficial to expand V50 testing to leverage this into improved helmets for the soldier. Using
so that the whole curve can be estimated with reasonable legacy measures to define the standard a helmet is required
precision, without expending a lot more additional resources to meet for FAT and LAT represents a lost opportunity and
in terms of number of shots. potentially an important sacrifice in helmet protection.
This expanded testing would involve taking multiple shots
at different (selected) velocities and fitting a parametric curve Recommendation 9-3. To be consistent with the goal of
to the velocity-penetration response data. Typical choices continuous improvement, developmental testing results from
for the curve are logistic or normal distributions, leading to helmet design should be used to allow better calibration of
logit and probit curves, respectively. This approach allows current helmet capability and to help define more meaningful
for estimation of any quantile of the velocity-penetration thresholds for helmet protection.
distribution, not just the median. One can also compute the
standard error associated with the estimated quantile. There A key difference in DoD’s approach used in the procure-
is extensive literature on the design and analysis of such ment process for helmets from the more common practice of
studies (Ruburg, 1995; Prentice, 1976). industry is the focus on performance specifications instead
The curves are typically described by two parameters for of design specifications. In much of industry, and indeed for
location and shape. The shape parameter provides an indi- some military procurement processes involving complex
cation of the spread in the velocity-penetration distribution. products and systems, when a product is being developed,
It measures how consistent the penetration velocity is from design specifications for material, structure, and assembly
helmet to helmet or among shot locations within a helmet. are the basis for assessing its adequacy. In other words, the
Changes in a production process, for example, could either manufacturing process is closely monitored and checked to
increase or decrease the variability of penetration velocities. make sure that the product matches the details for what is
Certain environments might not affect V50 but could increase required. This provides a direct and easily measurable means
the standard deviation and, thereby, degrade a helmet’s pro- of checking new products as they are completed.
tective capability. On the other hand, the current DoD helmet procurement
process allows manufacturers to build the helmet with any
Recommendation 9-2. The Department of Defense should design specifications, and the sole test of the adequacy of
consider alternative approaches to its current methodology the helmet is through performance tests during FAT and
for estimating V50. One alternative is to estimate the entire LAT testing. An advantage of this approach is that it allows
velocity-penetration distribution by varying the shot veloci- the manufacturers the flexibility to change the process and
ties over a prescribed range. Given the limited test resources update their production methods as technology evolves.
(number of shots), the estimation methodology has to be However, it has the disadvantage of placing all of the burden
based on fitting parametric curves. The approach also allows for evaluation at the end of the production process through
computation of standard errors associated with V50 and other rigorous and expensive testing.
quantiles of interest. A potentially beneficial alternative—one that would
encourage improved process monitoring while still allow-
ing manufacturers flexibility to improve their product as
9.5 COMPARISON WITH INDUSTRIAL PRACTICES
new technologies are developed—would be to combine the
So far, this chapter has focused on specific issues on char- design and performance specification approaches. Manufac-
acterization related to helmet testing. This section provides a turers could develop their own design specifications, which
more general discussion of industrial best practices. would then be tracked with reports given to the DOT&E.

This information would then be used to complement the bilities, relative to the costs and resources they require. A
performance-based testing currently used, particularly at the number of the proposed characterization studies can be done
LAT testing stage. This additional information would allow using data that are collected as part of the FAT and LAT test
DOT&E to have better understanding of the stability of the process. Others will require different types of testing and the
process, while having the reassurances of the performance- investment of additional resources.
based testing.
Once the design specification requirements have been Recommendation 9-5. For new generations of helmets, the
determined by the manufacturer, then the capability of the scope of characterization studies should be broader than
currently available product can be quantified using one of what is currently being done. They should include many of
the common process capability metrics (Montgomery, 2012). the activities described in Section 9.3.
In the absence of formally specified requirements, matching
or surpassing current production capability is a common
9.7 REFERENCES
alternative for capability analysis methods. Characterizing
product performance is an established practice in industry Bothe, D.R. 1997. Measuring Process Capability: Techniques and Calcula-
tions for Quality and Manufacturing Engineers. McGraw-Hill, New
and is used to quantify current performance as well as
York, N.Y.
establish a baseline from which target future improvements DoD (Department of Defense). 1997. Department of Defense Test Method
can be assessed. Standard: V50 Ballistic Test for Armor. MIL-STD-662F. U.S. Army
The standard approach to monitoring stability of produc- Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
tion is through control charts based on manufacturing char- DoD IG (Department of Defense Inspector General). 2013. Advanced
Combat Helmet Technical Assessment. DODIG-2013-079. Department
acteristics (Hoerl and Snee, 2012), that allow for continuous
of Defense, Washington, D.C.
supervision and monitoring of standards as products are Hoerl, R.W., and R.D. Snee. 2012. Statistical Thinking: Improving Business
being produced. Supervision and monitoring involve active Performance. Wiley, Hoboken, N.J.
management and watching real-time results to see if there Lozano, F., Product 9 Manager, Soldier Protective Equipment, U.S. Army.
is a problem. Current FAT and LAT testing is based on a 2013. V50 Ballistic Limit Testing. Information paper. June 18, 2013.
U.S. Army, Fort Belvoir, Va.
paradigm of inspection, in which during post-production
Montgomery, D.C. 2012. Introduction to Statistical Quality Control. Wiley,
the products are evaluated to assess conformance. Standard Hoboken, N.J.
practice in industry has evolved away from primarily using NSA (NATO Standardization Agency). 2003. Ballistic Test Method for Per-
inspection to a model in which monitoring is a key aspect sonal Armour Materials and Combat Clothing. NSA/0723-PPS-2920.
of ensuring ongoing product quality. Monitoring has the STANAG 2920 PPS–Edition 2. NATO Standardization Agency, Brus-
sels, Belgium.
advantages of ensuring that a production process operates at
Prentice, R.L. 1976. Generalization of the probit and logit methods for dose
its full potential, reducing waste, and detecting changes in response curves. Biometrika 32:761-768.
performance quickly. Pyzdek, T., and P.A. Keller. 2003. Quality Engineering Handbook. CRC
Press, Boca Raton, Fla.
Recommendation 9-4. Manufacturers should be required to Ruburg, S.J. 1995. Dose response studies I. Some design considerations.
Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics 5(1):1-14.
provide some documentation of ongoing process monitoring
U.S. Army. 2012. Advanced Combat Helmet (ACH) Purchase Description,
of the helmet production as a beneficial enhancement to the Rev A with Change 4. AR/PD 10-02. Soldier Equipment, Program
lot acceptance testing protocol. Executive Office—Soldier, Fort Belvoir, Va.
9.6 CONCLUDING REMARKS

It is for DoD to choose the appropriate characterization
tests and analyses that should be done, based on its assess-
ment of the benefits, in terms of improving the understanding
of helmet protective properties and improving those capa-

10
Linking Helmet Protection to Brain Injury
10.0 SUMMARY injury and brain physiological tolerance must be linked to

the magnitude of the transfer of force or other mechanical
The relationships between helmet deformation and brain
parameters—from the impact to the helmet onto the head
injury are not well known. Most of the studies in biomechani-
and into the brain.
cal engineering and medicine are related to sports and vehicle
For helmeted service personnel, nonpenetrating injuries
collisions, and these investigations are based on a different
may be caused by local contact of the deforming undefeated
range of stresses and stress rates from those encountered in
helmet onto the head/underlying skull or from more regional
the battlefield. The aim of this chapter is to present infor-
helmet/head contact with forces transmitted through the
mation on what is known, and the gaps, about the linkage
helmet webbing or padding to the skull (Bass et al., 2003).
between brain injury and current battlefield threats. The
These forces may result in direct, local deformation of the
major finding is that helmet protection from penetration
skull and translation and/or rotation of the head, leading to
and backface deformation (BFD) greater than a particular
brain injuries. Some mechanisms of brain injury, such as
value does not protect the brain from occurrence of many
abrupt acceleration changes of the body due to an impro-
categories of tissue injury. Recommendations that can help
vised explosive device (IED) blast or a paratrooper hard
focus research range from determination of the prevalence
landing, are not necessarily attenuated by helmets, but the
of reversible declines in hormonal function years after brain
injury mechanisms are likely similar to injuries from blunt
trauma to acceleration of research in computational modeling
head trauma. Blast pressure stress from IEDs and artillery
and simulation that can show shear stress fields associated
can directly or indirectly transmit pressure fields to the head
with the known spectrum of threats and the protective capa-
that result in shear stresses in the brain (Panzer et al., 2012;
bilities of helmets.
Shridharani et al., 2012a).
The subject of this chapter is the right side of Figure 10-1.
10.1 INTRODUCTION The committee presents what is known (and the gaps) about
brain injury tolerances relative to current standards of helmet
The transmission of stress to the brain from any substan-
protection. This is an essential component in determining
tial impact on the head can lead to traumatic brain injury
how much the helmet must attenuate the impact force to
(TBI). Acute brain injury, even mild injuries, may severely
prevent brain trauma. Box 10-1 provides a glossary of terms
influence or restrict military operational capabilities, and
used in this chapter.
long-term consequences will have an impact on individual
quality of life.
The effects on brain function depend on the magnitude 10.2 BRAIN INJURIES
and direction of the force impacting the head. Therefore, it
is important to understand linkages between blunt trauma Types of Nonpenetrating Brain Injuries
and brain injury and how the helmet attenuates the effect of
Blunt trauma can lead to various types of brain injuries,
the impact (see Figure 10-1). For example, it is known that
ranging from concussion, hemorrhaging, hematoma (blood
for lower severity ballistic or blunt inputs, the transfer of
clots), skull fracture, anoxic injury (lack of oxygen), and
momentum and rate of change of momentum (force) from an
diffuse axonal injury or DAI (damage to the brain neurons).
impact can be sufficiently attenuated by the helmet to prevent
Table 10-1 provides a listing of 13 major categories of brain
brain tissue injuries. Thus, an understanding of brain tissue
injuries and potential causes.
70

LINKING HELMET PROTECTION TO BRAIN INJURY 71
Kinetic energy Helmet

Pressure Deformation
Momentum
Acute Later Effects:

Injuries: • Inflammation
• Hemorrhage • Deposition of
• Contusion protein
• Diffuse aggregates (Tau,
axonal amyloid)
injury • Hypopituitarism
• Intracranial • Behavioral
pressure Issues
FIGURE 10-1 Linkages between the force of the impact, how the helmet attenuates it, and resulting brain injuries.
Many of these injuries are caused by differential motions/ Quasistatic compression as high as 50 MPa (7300 psi) or
strains within the soft tissues of the brain. The motion of the more does not result in injury to mammalian cells (Grundfest,
surface of the brain against the bony structures of the head 1936). Nerves and blood vessels are susceptible to stresses
leads to tissue contusions, vascular tears, and hemorrhages. with strain tolerances usually less than 10 to 20 percent for
Figure
These initiating injuries 10-1, editable
may degrade brain function through functional failure of neural tissues such as neurons/axons/
various mechanisms such as the restriction of blood supply or glia and probably less for some arterial networks (Margulies
damage to cells. It is thought that compression (hydrostatic) and Thibault, 1992; Smith et al., 1999).
alone is not an initiating cause of tissue injury unless it results The susceptibility of the brain to shearing forces, and
in shear stress. (See Panzer et al., 2012, for results with high its very high incompressibility, may lead to contusions or
rate blast impacts.) hemorrhaging at the surface of the brain. Rotational accel-
eration and change in acceleration cause blood vessel rup-
tures leading to bleeding between the brain covering (dura
mater) and the skull with the result of increased intracranial
pressure. Bleeding may also arise in the space between the
TABLE 10-1 Categories of Brain Injuries dura mater and the brain (subdural hemorrhage). Injuries
Categories associated with the rapid acceleration and deceleration of
1 Direct contusion of the brain from skull deformation or fracture the head result in forces that produce stretching and tearing
2 Brain contusion (including coup) from movement against interior of axons (causing DAI). Such strains and potentially large
surfaces of the skull pressure or stress waves in small blood vessels can lead to
3 Indirect (countercoup) contusion from mechanical response of the
small hemorrhages (petechial hemorrhages) deep within the
brain opposite the side of the impact
4 Reduced blood flow due to infarction or pressure-based occlusion brain. Even when not life threatening, such injuries have the
5 Disruptive and non-disruptive diffuse axonal injury from shear potential for delayed injury, including local brain swelling,
stresses as well as long-term consequences with symptoms persisting
6 Tissue stresses and strains produced by motion of the brain many years after the initial brain injury.
hemispheres relative to the skull
Important and frequently undiagnosed effects include
7 Subdural and epidural hematomas produced by rupture of bridging
vessels between the brain and the dura mater alterations in microcirculation that can lead to hypoperfusion
8 Pressure-based rupture of small blood vessels leading to petechial or regional vasospasm with the result of inadequate delivery
hemorrhages of vital metabolites to neural tissue. These mechanisms are
9 Strains beyond material tolerances of nerves and blood vessels believed to contribute to the short-term as well as long-term
10 Vasospasm resulting in diminished blood flow
effects from ballistic helmet hits, head collisions, and expo-
11 Trauma induced hypopituitarism
12 Perturbations in brain biochemistry functioning with pathologic sures to high-intensity blasts. Other long-term effects from
signs and symptoms long after the injury brain trauma may include declines in hormonal function
13 Temporary or permanent changes in visual, verbal, and motor related to disruption of the pituitary gland (e.g., growth hor-
functioning

BOX 10-1
Glossary
Blast Detonation of liquid or solid explosive material results in the generation of gaseous products in the pressure range of
150,000 atmospheres or 1.5 billion Pascals (1.5 GPa) and temperature of 3000 Kelvin.
DTI Diffusion tensor imaging—a MRI method that maps the magnitude of water diffusion in different directions. The
method gives a value of diffusion anisotropy (DA), which will decline if the normal orientation of fiber in white
matter is disrupted by edema or tears, for example.
Epidural hematoma Collection of blood from rupture of vessels between the brain dura mater and the skull.
FEM Finite element modeling—a computational system that provides the means to simulate the effects of forces on
structures such as the skull and brain tissues.
fMRI functional magnetic resonance imaging—fMRI is similar to MRI, but the image gives information regarding blood
flow changes in the brain after some stimulation.
G or g Symbol for the acceleration of gravity magnitude of 9.8 m s-2.
Hypopituitarism Dysfunction of the pituitary organ manifested by low secretion of hormones such as ACTH, growth hormone, thyroid
stimulating hormone, oxytocin, vasopressin, etc.
J Joule is energy or force times the distance over which force acts. It is the unit for kinetic energy defined as mass
times velocity squared/2.
kPa (kiloPascal) is a unit of pressure equal to a 1000 Pascals (10 kPa is 1 atmosphere of pressure).
Momentum Defined as the product of mass and velocity. The rate of change of momentum is force.
MRI Magnetic resonance imaging
N Newton is the unit of force or the product of mass times acceleration.

NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
National Institute This standard, designated “0101.04” stipulates the maximum deformation a soft armor vest can undergo without
of Justice Standard penetration is 44-mm as measured in a clay substrate after a live fire test of the armor.
PET Positron emission tomography—an imaging method that uses radioactive tracers that specifically target proteins
and other functions of the body. It differs from SPECT in the types of tracers used and the characteristics of the
instrumentation.
Pituitary organ A 7-mm diameter organ suspended on a stalk from the base of the brain into a well at the floor of the skull. It secretes
9 hormones into the bloodstream in response to stimuli from the hypothalamus also at the base of the brain. These
hormones include growth hormone and thyroid stimulating hormone.
Shear modulus The ratio of the tangential force per unit area to the angular deformation in radians.
Strain The fractional change in a physical dimension of matter in response to stress. It is frequently given as a percentage
(e.g., 5 percent) and can be over 100 percent.
Stress The force per area or volume with dimensions of newtons per meter squared or Pascal.
Stress waves Compression waves in a material due to an impulse or sudden load change.

mone and thyroid function deterioration) and the occurrence

of abnormal proteins in the brain years after trauma.
Some data on injury thresholds exist for low-rate skull
fracture, concussion, and diffuse axonal injury. But these
have been derived from animal and human studies using
experiences from vehicle collisions and laboratory experi-
ments with stresses and rate of change of stress (i.e., strain
rate) much lower than those associated with projectile and
blast threats in the battlefield. Thus, a translation of these
low-stress-rate data from animals, physical models, and
mathematical simulations to the ballistic blunt trauma case
is not expected to be reliable. As a consequence, design of
protection from typical military threats is compromised FIGURE 10-2 Incidence of traumatic brain injury classified by
because we do not know the injury thresholds. severity for warfighters. SOURCE: DoD Worldwide Numbers for
A study by the Institute of Medicine found evidence for FigureBrain
Traumatic 10-2, fixed
Injury, http://semanticommunity.info/Binary_at_
association between TBI and various disorders that included LandWarNet_2011/Defense_and_Veterans_Brain_Injury_Center_
adverse social-functions, endocrine dysfunction, depression, Site_Map/DoD_Worldwide_Numbers_for_Traumatic_Brain_
aggressive behavior, and dementias for moderate or severe Injury.
TBI (Ishibe et al., 2009). Further, concussion is no longer
accepted as a threshold for diagnosis of potential brain
trauma. Modern diagnostic methods reviewed in Appendix F 2006). During this period, 220,430 service members had
show signatures of mild TBI (mTBI) unrelated to presence sustained TBI, with 169,209 classified as concussion/mTBI
of concussion. (Kelly et al., 2012). In a study of 3,973 soldiers who served
Once the acute medical events are treated, current clini- in Iraq, 23 percent percent had a clinician-confirmed history
cal practice is not capable of effectively enhancing natural of TBI (Terrio et al., 2009). In a separate study, mTBI in
recovery or diminishing long-term effects after the blunt soldiers deployed in Iraq was found to be strongly associated
trauma (Giza et al., 2013). Thus, the best approach is protec- with posttraumatic stress disorder and depression (Hoge et
tion from blunt brain trauma. This chapter presents relevant al., 2008). The deployment of magnetic resonance imaging
physiological and biomechanical aspects of blunt trauma, methods to the evaluation of brain injury related to blast
the state of knowledge regarding injury tolerances, and per- exposure of warfighters (Mac Donald et al., 2011; Yeh et al.,
spectives on detection of mTBI through noninvasive imag- 2013) can potentially provide a refinement in diagnoses of
ing. Current noninvasive methods of brain injury detection brain injury in warfighters exposed to non-concussive blast
are in Appendix F. Aspects of helmet design and the threat and blunt trauma events. However, in one study white matter
characteristics are given in Chapters 2 and 3. injuries were not revealed by magnetic resonance diffusion
tensor imaging (DTI) on veterans with mTBI, despite their
symptoms of compromised verbal memory (Levin et al.,
Historical Data
2010).
TBI can result from a number of events: falls, motor vehi-
cle accidents, bicycle accidents, collisions, blast exposure,
10.3 HEAD AND BRAIN INJURY TOLERANCES
and blunt head trauma in the battlefield. More than 5 million
Americans alive today have had a TBI, and the associated Brain response and brain injury tolerances are not well
medical care cost is around $56 billion per year in the United established for high-rate impacts such as those from BFD or
States. Cognitive, communicative disabilities and social blasts (Bass et al., 2003, 2012; Rafaels et al., 2012).
behavior abnormalities as well as medical complications,
such as hormonal deficiencies that affect functioning of the
Head Injury Tolerance Standards for Vehicle Collisions
brain, thyroid, and gonads, are prevalent in survivors of TBI.
Figure 10-2 shows the annual incidence of TBIs in war- Early work on low-rate blunt trauma brain injury toler-
fighters during the period 2000-2011.1 It is likely that the ance (Gurdjian et al., 1966; Ommaya and Hirsch, 1971; Ono
increasing numbers of mild and moderate TBI relative to et al., 1980) emphasized that acceleration of the head and the
severe TBI may be partly attributable to greater awareness time duration of the acceleration are important parameters
of TBI risk among military clinicians (Okie, 2005; Warden, for assessing injury severity (Prasad and Mertz, 1985). Such
criteria are in wide use in the automobile impact community
1Armed Forces Surveillance Program information available at http:// (FMVSS-208, EuroNCAP), but the injury risk functions
semanticommunity.info/Binary_at_LandWarNet_2011/Defense_and_ using these parameters have not been universally accepted.
Veterans_Brain_Injury_Center_Site_Map/DoD_Worldwide_Numbers_for_
The most widely used criterion is known as the Head Injury
Traumatic_Brain_Injury. Last accessed on January 31, 2014.

Criterion (HIC) severity index. Although it is widely used, it levels specified in these standards range from 150 to 400 g,
is recognized as inadequate to fully explain brain injury out- with more recent standards tending to the 150 g peak limit.
come (Versace, 1971). For military helmets, HIC and similar Studies of football impacts suggest that an acceleration
concepts incorporating global skull rotational parameters standard of approximately 80 g should be used to provide
(e.g., Newman et al., 2000) assume rigid body motion of the protection below the threshold for changes in menta-
head/brain system and do not incorporate local deformations tion (Duma, et al., 2005). Other relevant results include:
that may be crucial for assessing the injury potential from the Advanced Combat Helmet standard (CO/PD-05-04),
ballistic impacts (Bass et al., 2003). which is based on the motorcycle helmet Federal Motor
Some measures based on internal stresses and/or strains Vehicle Safety Standard-218 (49 CFR Sec. 571.218); and
have been proposed as the injury criteria for the brain (e.g., the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic
Stalnaker et al., 1971; Takhounts et al., 2003). However, Equipment and standards incorporating the International
there is still no universally acknowledged criterion, and Standards Organization headforms. Virginia Polytechnic
the situation today is much the same as that articulated by Institute’s star rating system for helmets2 involves extensive
Goldsmith (1981): impact tests and risk analysis to establish a rating for com-
mercial football helmets.
Thus, the state of knowledge concerning trauma of the hu- These criteria are based, in part, on underlying assump-
man head is so scant that the community cannot agree on tions that are not realistic, especially for military use with
new and improved injury criteria even though it is generally ballistic protective helmets. The first is that the head acts
admitted that present designations are not satisfactory. Mini- as a rigid body so that acceleration or some derivative may
mally, there is an urgent need to differentiate skull fracture
be correlated with injury and that head injury of any type is
and mechanical and/or physiological damage to the central
nervous system, with a replacement of a critical acceleration
associated with skull fracture (Hodgson and Thomas, 1973).
level for the former by a limiting stress value. Previous studies show a poor correlation between skull
fracture and brain injury (Viano, 1988). For ballistic BFD
In the past 30 years, experimental data and models have injuries, local deformations invalidate the rigid body assump-
been accumulating from animal, cadaver, physical models, tion, and injuries seen from BFD are not well correlated with
and computational modeling and simulation studies (dis- acceleration-based measures.
cussed later in this chapter). With further research, these data
and models can lead to injury risk evaluations such as those 10.4 BRAIN TISSUE INJURY: EXPERIMENTAL
done for the risk of a skull fracture for 9-mm bullet impacts RESULTS
to the helmet as detailed below. A goal is to determine the
injury risk function for the major brain tissue injuries of Over the past 70 years, researchers have attempted to
Table 10-1 relevant to militarily relevant injuries such as understand the relationships between head, skull, and brain
those associated with BFD and blunt and blast neurotrauma. injury mechanisms and blunt trauma using cadavers, physical
models, animals, and computer simulations. This has been
Recommendation 10-1. There is an urgent need to establish stimulated largely by the automobile industry in an effort to
stress and stress rate or other parameters as metrics for cat- improve vehicle occupant safety. More recently, sports inju-
egories of brain tissue injuries from ballistic and blast-based ries have triggered international efforts to improve helmet
head exposures. protection and to make measurements on human subjects
involved in collision sports. Currently, there is no satisfactory
experimental model that can produce the complete spectrum
Nonmilitary Helmet Protection Standards of brain injuries that are seen clinically while also being suf-
There have been major advances in blunt head protection ficiently well controlled and quantifiable for defining brain
over the past 30 years. Some of these advances are be due injury tolerances. Some data do exist for the stress associated
to widespread use of helmets in athletics and the subsequent with skull fracture, but this is only part of the spectrum of
reduction in both frequency and severity of head and neck short- and long-term consequences of ballistic impacts to the
injuries. Many improvements in helmet technology have fol- helmeted soldier, and the low-rate tests generally available
lowed from the development of standardized test methodolo- may not be applicable to ballistic impacts.
gies based on mechanical blunt impact injury criteria. The
Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development Early Investigations of Mechanisms
(AGARD) Report AR-330 lists 29 blunt impact test standards
(AGARD, 1996), and each of these standards has some form In the early 1940s, investigators proposed that brain injury
of translational impact acceleration limiting criterion. Of from skull fractures was from intracranial pressure. However,
these standards, 19 are based on acceleration or force peaks physical studies using photoelastic models of the head dem-
alone, and 10 are based on acceleration/duration levels. The
2Additional information is available at http://www.sbes.vt.edu/nid.php.

onstrated that the likely cause of diffuse brain injury is from

tissue strains induced by rotational acceleration of the head a.
(Holbourn, 1943). This was confirmed by Gurdjian et al.
(1955). The investigation of the relative roles of translational
and rotational accelerations using more elaborate experimen-
tal models of the subhuman primate led to the conclusion that
diffuse injuries to the brain occurred only in the presence of
head rotational motion (Gennarelli et al., 1972; Gennarelli
and Thibault, 1989; Ommaya and Gennarelli, 1974). Diffuse
brain injuries occurred at lower angular deceleration levels as
the pulse duration increased (Gennarelli and Thibault, 1989).
In coronal plane rotational acceleration, the critical shear
strain associated with the onset of diffuse axonal injury was
about 10 percent, and the rotational acceleration threshold
for severe diffuse axonal injury was about 16,000 rad/sec2
(Margulies et al., 1990). Inertial loading alone to the head
can cause DAI, which is an important cause of fatality or
late onset of disabilities due to head injury (Gennarelli et
al., 1972).
Modern Experimental Investigations of Injury Criteria

To simulate the impact response of the human, the auto-
motive industry developed the Hybrid III 50th Percentile
Male anthropometric test device (ATD) in the early 1970s.
Originally developed by General Motors, the ATD is now b.
regulated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Admin-
istration (NHTSA) in conjunction with the committees
from the Society of Automotive Engineers. It has become
a validated tool for the evaluation of automotive impacts Figure 10-3 fixed
and can accommodate a wide range of instrumentation and
transducers. It is also robust enough for repeated ballistic
experiments (Bass et al., 2003).
A collaborative effort between Natick laboratories,
DRDC-Valcartier, and the University of Virginia (UVA)
led to the development of a ballistic version of the Hybrid
III head augmented with impact pressure sensors (Bass et
al., 2003). The UVA headform is shown in Figure 10-3a.
Instrumentation for the Hybrid III head and neck region
consisted of three linear accelerometers and angular rate
sensors at the center of the ATD headform and six-axis
upper and lower neck load cells. Using the Hybrid III
headform modified to accept surface pressure sensors, the
pressure measurements at various locations were recorded,
analyzed, and compared to human cadaver results (e.g.,
Bass et al., 2003). Injury metrics assessed using this head-
form include force/pressure, the HIC injury criterion, and
the National Institute of Justice Neck Injury Criteria. The
force/pressure results correlated well with injury in the
paired cadaver model, while HIC was poorly correlated
with injury. This concept has been recently modified in a
rigid headform with regional loadcell sensing under the
FIGURE 10-3 (a) The University of Virginia’s Hybrid III head
ballistic impact by Biokinetics (Figure 10-3b).
model used for laboratory simulations and measurements. (b) Bio-
kinetics headform variant of the Hybrid III headform for ballistic
impact. SOURCE: Courtesy of Biokinetics and Associates, Ltd.

Brain Injury/Concussion Risk/Thresholds Modern Football Helmet Instrument Data versus

Concussion Symptoms
Concussion is a symptom of the state of awareness or
consciousness and is not a category of pathological brain In the early 1970s, head-bands of suspension-style foot-
tissue injury. The linkage between a diagnosis of concussion ball helmets were instrumented with an accelerometer and
and a specific brain injury has been the subject of controversy electroencephalogram system (Moon et al., 1971; Reid et al.,
among neurologists and neurosurgeons since the mid-1920s 1974) that allowed records from a single player at a time.
(Saucier, 1955). For example, one cannot say to what extent Around 2000, hockey and football helmets were instru-
structural damage, such as vascular ruptures or neuronal mented with three-dimensional accelerometers, and these
strains, cause loss of consciousness. What have been defined measurements gave an average of 29 g from 158 impacts
experimentally are the relations between stress and animal from high school athletes with no observed symptoms of
consciousness over a limited range of stress rates that have TBI. Addition of video analysis and dummy reenactments
not included the rates associated with a high-velocity, ballis- allowed laboratory simulations and measurements of head
tic, nonpenetrating hit to a helmet. The threshold for concus- acceleration, although there are substantial limitations in
sion increases as the duration of impact decreases (Guardjian inferring accelerations directly from video (Newman et al.,
et al., 1955). See Table 10-2 for the median concussion levels 2005; Pellman et al., 2003). Velocities and changes in veloci-
trauma given in dimensions of energy, power, and pressure. ties were interpreted from video recordings, and threshold
The criteria for concussion in the animal laboratory stud- values for concussion were given based on analyses simulat-
ies reflected in most of the studies of Table 10-2 are much ing the video impacts with the Hybrid III dummy headform.
different from concussions diagnosed in sports, vehicle col- These studies did not clear up potential distinction between
lisions, falls, and battlefield events. The majority of concus- injuries from rotational and translational accelerations
sions do not result in a loss of consciousness. In particular, (Genarelli and Thibault, 1989; King et al., 2003). But it is
for sports injuries, a concussion is diagnosed if the athlete is important to note that: (1) purely translational or rotational
confused, complains of dizziness, headaches, blurred vision, accelerations of the head are not likely for a head tethered
or sensitivity to light, sound, or odors or by the physical signs to the inertial mass of the body (King et al., 2003); and (2)
of motor coordination dysfunction (cf. Appendix F). Ninety- even purely translational acceleration of the head produces
five percent of high school football concussions did not rotational behavior in the brain tissue, and purely rotational
involve loss of consciousness (Meehan et al., 2010). In the excitation of the brain produces local translational behavior
battlefield, a diagnosis of mTBI or equivalently “concussion” in the brain tissue. Thus, the debate regarding the severity
involves a protocol called Military Acute Concussion Evalu- of rotational acceleration versus translational acceleration
ation (MACE). This examination is given as soon as possible brain trauma is largely artificial and is based on a rigid body
after a warfighter has been exposed to blast, projectile blunt view of the head.
trauma, or vehicle collision. It measures orientation, recent Actual measurements of direction and magnitude of
memory, concentration, and memory recall. head accelerations football players receive became avail-
able when sensors and telemetry units were provided to
multiple players using an in-helmet 6-accelerometer system
TABLE 10-2 Brain Injury Criteria and Median Values for that transmits data via radio frequency to a sideline receiver
Concussion for Low-Rate Blunt Impact and laptop computer system (Duma et al., 2005). Using this
Brain Injury Median Values
commercial system, a risk of sustaining a concussion for a
Criteria for Concussion Source given impact was derived from data collected from 63,011
impacts including 244 concussions (Rowson and Duma,
Energy 22-24 J Denny-Brown and
Russell (1941) 2013). Both linear and rotational accelerations as well as the
combination of linear and rotational accelerations were used
Power 13 kW Newman et al. (2000)
in the derivation of a concussion risk function. The predictive
Strain 0.2 Bain and Meaney capability of linear acceleration was about the same as that
(2000); Morrison et al.
for the combined probability.
(2003)a
A study of the linkage of impact severity was done on high
Strain x strain rate 30 s-1 Viano and Lövsund school football players using cognitive tests and magnetic
(1999)
resonance imaging (MRI) before and after two seasons of
Stress (von Mises) 6-11 kPa Shreiber et al. (1997) football while wearing accelerometer instrumented helmets
Cumulative strain 0.55 Takhounts et al. (2003) (Breedlove et al., 2012). A relationship was found between
damage measure the number of impacts and cognitive tests and the number
Strain energy density 0.8-1.9 kJ/m3 Shreiber et al. (1997) of hits and functional MRI changes (see also Talavage et
Pressure 173 kPa Ward et al. (1980)
al., 2013). It is expected that an expansion of these types of
study will improve the development of head injury criteria
a Strains less than 0.15 can cause diffuse axonal injury.

and clinical evaluation techniques as well as enhance return- Skull

to-play decision making. Strain Sensors
Force/Strain
Military helmet sensor instrumentation programs in the Sensors at Impact Site
Intracranial
United States were initiated in 2008 in order to collect battle- Strain Sensors
field data that could then be used by medical epidemiologists
as well as design and manufacturing communities to improve
Acoustic
design. These data should help significantly in the quest to Crack Sensor
Neck Potting
understand the linkages between stresses on the helmet and Cup
Oral Head
brain injuries. Accelerometers Neck Load
Neck LoadCell
Cell
Skull Fracture Intracranial

Pressure Sensors
Modern ballistic protective helmet materials (McManus
et al., 1976; Carey et al., 2000) can deform sufficiently so FIGURE 10-4 Instrumented cadaver head. SOURCE: NRC (2012).
that the backface of the helmet contacts the head, potentially
causing head injuries (Bass et al., 2002). Potential injuries
fracture tests, the calculated injury assessment value was
include both depressed and long-linear skull fractures and
well below the usual low-rate blunt trauma injury reference
closed-head brain injuries. Substantial work has been done
value. Further, there was no obvious association of accelera-
on skull fracture injury, especially at low rates, but most of
tion-based responses to the occurrence of BFD and fracture.
it is not directly applicable to military helmet injury criteria.
This study developed injury criteria for both test round
Skull fracture is a measure of head injury that can be
velocity and cadaver peak-impact pressure. For this injury
related to the forces applied and thus can provide one of
risk function, there is a 50 percent risk of skull fracture for
the needed links between level of protection and threats.
a peak impact pressure of 51 MPa as measured by the force/
But most of the existing measurements are restricted to low
strain instrumentation (Figure 10-4). Using a simple velocity
velocities and large impact areas (Yoganandan et al., 1995;
correlation between the dummy and cadaver, a dummy injury
Bass and Yoganandan, 2013) and have limited relevance to
risk function is developed that has a 50 percent risk of skull
the goal of linking battlefield threats to required protection
fracture for dummy peak impact pressure of 15,220 kPa.
for head and brain injury protection.
This injury risk function may be used with a general helmet
Whatever is known is based on cadaver measurements
and the Hybrid III dummy discussed earlier in this section.
of skull fracture and recordings from internally placed pres-
Automobile injury criteria, including the HIC, were not
sure sensors and accelerometers. The mechanical properties
found to be a good predictor of cadaveric injury. Skull frac-
of stiffness, force deflection, and energies to fracture were
ture from ballistic BFD is an intrinsically high rate event.
measured on 12 unembalmed cadaver skulls (Yoganandan et
Energy is deposited locally, and local skull deformations
al., 1995) at low rates typical of blunt trauma from conven-
are significant. Use of HIC requires essentially rigid body
tional falls and vehicle crashes. Impact loading at 7 to 8 m/s
motion of the head at relatively low rate compared to bal-
revealed failure loads of 6.4 kN (±1.1) and energies averag-
listic events.
ing 33.5 J (±8.5). Quasistatic loading at 2.5mm/s showed
failure at 12 mm (±1.6). Variability was great in all param-
Finding 10-1. Most of the experimental work that links
eters with, for example, a range of stiffness of 467 to 5,867
brain injury to blunt trauma is related to vehicle collisions
N/mm. Delye et al. (2007) found skull fracture energy level
and football collisions. The data from these studies are not
in the range of 22 to 24 J for dynamic loading of the cadaver
directly relevant to BFD and blast TBI because the rate of
head having one degree of freedom. A human cadaver study
momentum change is higher and contact times shorter for
of fracture thresholds for 37-mm diameter projectiles of 25
military TBI situations.
to 35 g gave force values of 6 kN for the forehead, 1.9 kN
for the mandible, and 1.6 kN for the zygoma (Viano et al.,
2004). Impact stress values for the adult skull are given as Brain Intracranial Pressure and Edema
43 MPa (Ommaya et al., 2002) and are age and size related.
Symptoms from intracranial pressure (ICP) increases can
Two series of ballistic impact tests used human cadaver
be acute and an immediate consequence of the stress wave
heads with protective helmets (Bass et al., 2003). These tests
from blunt trauma to the brain or transmitted pressures from
used UHMWPE helmets with 9-mm full-metal-jacket test
trauma delivered to remote parts of the body. The experimen-
rounds under various impact velocities to 460 m/s (1,510
tal data that link ICP elevations to blunt trauma to the surface
ft/s). Measurements taken from cadavers with and without
of a helmet or surrogate protective material come from a
skull fracture show no correlation with existing blunt trauma
limited number of experiments that used live animal models,
injury models based on the Wayne State Concussive Toler-
cadavers, and physical models (Engelborghs et al., 1998;
ance Curve or similar concepts, including HIC. For the skull

Shridharani et al., 2012b; Rafaels et al., 2012; Sarron et al.,

2004). The models differ in characteristics, and the ballistic
trauma mechanism varies from dropping masses from vary-
ing heights in order to vary the velocities of projectiles (e.g.,
9-mm rounds from 300 to 800 m/s). These types of data can
be used to extrapolate a threshold for ICP elevation versus
armor characteristics and threat velocity. Although there are
limitations in animal model biofidelity with human skulls,
these types of experimental data are needed to better assess
brain injury tolerances and risk levels for defined threats.
Some models, although illustrative of the sequence of events
after brain trauma (e.g., occurrence of edema, blood brain
barrier changes, ion concentration variations), are difficult
to interpret relative to the ballistic threats and even collision
impacts as they use impactors systems of low velocity (3m/s)
and poorly or undefined energy or force metrics (e.g., Cernak
et al., 2004).
FIGURE 10-5 Thresholds for diffuse axonal injury based on non-
Brain Shear Stress and Diffuse Axonal Injury human primate rotational acceleration experiments and scaling
through computational modeling to human brain masses of 500 g
Diffuse brain injury from low-rate traumatic impacts to (thick solid curve),
Figure 10-5,1,067
fixed g (solid curve), and 1,400 g (dotted curve).
the head results in both destructive and nondestructive axo- Regions to the upper and right of each curve are regions of diffuse
nal injury. Destructive axonal injury was first described for axonal injury. SOURCE: Reprinted from Margulies and Thibault
cases of collision-based injuries leading to limited periods (1992) with permission from Elsevier.
of survival with autopsy findings of disrupted white mat-
ter tracks and normal grey matter (Strich, 1956, 1961). It
is unknown whether such injuries can arise from ballistic
BFD. Morphological studies of axonal injuries using non-
human primates subjected to head acceleration have shown
that shear forces create varying degrees of axonal damage, occurs when neuronal axons are stretched by more than
including fragmentation. Nondisruptive or reactive axonal about 20 percent. The results from simulations presented
injuries manifest over long time periods and are ascribed to in the discussion of modeling and simulations later in this
axonal membrane damage. It is now recognized that animal chapter show maximum strain levels of 14 percent and lower
models do not reflect the spatial and temporal patterns of (from 9-mm rounds) at 360 m/s striking helmets (Aare and
axonal injury in human brains (Maxwell et al., 1997; Bain Kleiven, 2007). However, it is not clear if these thresholds
and Meaney, 2000). are safe for injury effects that might manifest years after
Margulies and Thibault (1992) is one of the most detailed the injury.
experimental and modeling studies relative to thresholds of The threshold for nondisruptive axonal damage of 15
brain injury, and it showed that a combination of a peak rota- percent has been suggested by Maxwell and associates
tional acceleration of more than 10 krad/s2 and a peak change (Maxwell et al., 1997). But it is not clear that the 15 percent
in rotational velocity of more than 100 rad/s causes diffuse strain criterion should be an important benchmark, because
axonal injury. These criteria are proposed to be valid only tissue tolerance of the hippocampus and brainstem might be
for pure rotational accelerations, but the experimental model much lower, and the strain criteria are expected to be stress-
incorporates translational accelerations about the brain center rate dependent. Computational models and simulations
of gravity and the effect of these accelerations is uncertain. can explore the structural strains of simulated brain tissues
Lower injurious risk levels for rotational acceleration were related to physical variables of a ballistic or blast impact
proposed by others (Ueno and Melvin, 1995; Meaney et al., (e.g., acceleration, stress rate, stress duration, etc.). But an
1995). Thresholds for human brain injuries from Margulies important point is the understanding that nondestructive
and Thibault (1992) are shown in Figure 10-5. axonal damage can be the major cause of the high prevalence
Animal studies, physical model experiments, and analyti- of posttraumatic stress syndrome months and years after
cal model simulations have been employed to determine the brain trauma.
critical tolerances in terms of strain (relative elongation) and A summary of the current status of mechanisms, symp-
deterioration in function (Gennarelli et al., 1972; Lewis et toms, and possible treatments of DAI is now available from
al., 1996; Bain et al., 2001). Based on animal studies, the the May 2011 workshop hosted by the National Institute of
strain tolerance for frank axonal injury that may lead to DAI Neurological Disorders and Stroke (Smith et al., 2013).

Biological Response of Cells Exposed to Mechanical linear and angular accelerations of 1.5 g and 120-140 rad s–2,
Forces respectively. These accelerations are orders of magnitude
less than those associated with concussions. Small displace-
A key aspect of defining tissue tolerances is to describe
ments were found in regions having brain-skull connections.
the pathophysiological activation of cellular biochemical
Strain fields seen in this study exhibited significant areas with
cascades that produce delayed cell damage and death. This
maximal principal strains of 5 percent or greater at these
can be accomplished by measurements of the consequences
low experimental accelerations. Simple head flexion causes
of mechanical injuries on living brain tissue through observa-
cerebellum rotation of a few degrees and a downward motion
tions of cell viability and tissue biochemical changes using a
of up to 1.6 mm of the brain stem (Ji et al., 2004).
tissue culture model of rapid stretch induced injury (Ahmed
et al., 2000) or pulse pressure pulse exposure TBI (Morrison
et al., 2003). Stretch-induced injuries associated with about Hemorrhage: Petechial Disruption, Subdural Hematoma,
30 percent strains alter mitochondrial membrane potential and Epidural Hemorrhage
and cellular bioenergetic molecules, as shown by chemical
There are three principal types of internal vascular dis-
assay methods applied at various times after injury (Ahmed
ruptions from shear stresses and rotational accelerations
et al., 2000). Strains and strain rates can be precisely applied
that cause shear strain on small and large blood vessels and
and responses measured by fluorescent imaging and immu-
lymphatics: petechial, subdural, and epidural hemorrhages.
nostaining, including cell death quantification (Morrison et
Petechial hemorrhages can occur throughout the brain
al., 2003). Cellular energy metabolism perturbations have
and give evidence of shear strain as well as a pressure-based
been shown through standard molecular biology studies
disruption of capillaries and arterioles. The pressure can be
using in vitro and in vivo shock tube models of blast-induced
from a remote stress such as a blunt trauma to any part of
TBI (Peethambaran et al., 2013). Blast exposures resulted
the body and possibly from blast stresses of high intensities
in significant decreases in neuronal adenosine triphosphate
(NRC, 2012). These hemorrhages appear as blood extrusions
levels at 6 h post-blast that returned towards normal levels
of a millimeter or less in diameter in the midbrain, but they
by 24 h.
can be extensive throughout the brain. They are not recog-
nized as a clinical entity unless they disrupt sensory or motor
Finding 10-2. There are no data on axonal injuries from
functions of the brain. But they can cause some compromise
backface deformation. Also, currently there is no method to
of brain function and perhaps play a role in progressive brain
detect if diffuse axonal injury has occurred from head trauma
deterioration. They can be detected by high-field MRI if the
in the battlefield.
proper MRI pulse sequence is used. Subdural hemorrhages
leading to subdural hematomas occur in the space between
Recommendation 10-2. Methods including blood sampling
the dura (the outer cover over the brain) and the arachnoid
and brain imaging should be explored for feasibility of early
space.
detection of diffuse axonal injuries.
Epidural hemorrhages are bleedings from ruptured vessels
between the skull and the outer layer of dura. The build-up
Evidence for Differential Motion of the Brain and Skull of blood causes an increase in pressure within the intracra-
nial space, with subsequent compression of brain tissue and
A mechanism for many consequences of rapid accelera-
obstruction of the flow of blood and cerebral spinal fluid.
tions and decelerations is the shearing caused by differential
This is associated with particularly serious brain injury
motion between the skull and local brain tissue. Typical
because 15 to 31 percent of patients die of the injury (Leitgeb
injuries include contusions and meningeal hematomas seen
et al., 2013).
in automobile accidents. The first definitive study of brain
motion after a traumatic skull impact was done on live sub-
human primates using a Lucite cover over the skull vertex. Pituitary/Hypothalamus Damage
Blunt trauma was applied by a pneumatic impactor, and
The pituitary gland is a pea-sized gland suspended from
observations were made with cinephotography (Pudenz et
a pedicle at the base of the brain. It is surrounded by a skull
al., 1946). These authors also provided a detailed review of
base bone structure whose saddle-shaped structure is known
theories and observations from the late 1800s regarding brain
as the sella turcica (Figure 10-6). This gland secretes nine
motion as well as contusion and hemorrhage mechanisms.
hormones, some of which control the secretion of other hor-
Although experimental studies demonstrate motion
mones that are vital to growth and metabolism and whose
between brain and skull, little data exist regarding the base of
dysfunctions have been related to disorders beyond metabo-
the skull. Experiments on human subjects used MRI tagging
lism, including behavioral and affective disorders. Pituitary
techniques to show that the brain rotates relative to the skull
gland dysfunction has been inferred from the occurrence
(Kleiven and Hardy, 2002). Relative brain-skull displace-
of hypopituitarism in victims of head injury from low-rate
ments of 2 to 3 mm in some areas of the brain for induced
impact.

FIGURE 10-6 Left: The base of the human skull

supports the bottom of the brain and the brain
stem that descends through the large orifice in
the center known as the foramen magnum. Right:
Positron tomography of the uptake of ammonia-
13N in the normal pituitary. SOURCE: (Left) Im-
age provided courtesy of member Tom Budinger.

(Right) This research was originally published in
JNM. Xiangsong, Z., Y. Dianchao, and T. Anwu.
Dynamic 13N-Ammonia PET: A new imaging
method to diagnose Hypopituitarism. Journal of
Nuclear Medicine. 2005;46:44-47. Copyright by
the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular
Imaging, Inc.
Chronic hypopituitarism, defined as deficient produc- Recommendation 10-3. Modeling and simulation studies
tion of one or more pituitary hormones at least 1year after should incorporate the biomechanics of blunt brain trauma
injury, occurs in 40 percent of subjects who have sustained that affects the pituitary organ in the base of the brain in
blunt brain trauma (Bondanelli et al., 2005). Figure 10-6,the
In contrast, fixed order to determine injury thresholds and tolerances for blunt
prevalence of hypopituitarism in the general population is trauma and for ballistic backface injuries.
estimated at 0.03 percent. As the hormones released from
the pituitary are triggered by events in the hypothalamus, one Recommendation 10-4. The medical community should
cannot be certain of which tissue has been damaged. Growth institute a data collection program to determine the preva-
hormone decreases develop in 15 to 20 percent of patients lence of hypopituitarism in warfighters relevant to ballistic
with complicated mild, moderate, or severe TBI and are and blast blunt trauma with appropriate warfighter controls.
associated with symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder
(Kelly et al., 2006; Powner et al., 2006). About 15 percent of There is high prevalence of pituitary hypofunction in
TBI patients develop gonadal hormone deficiencies, and 10 brain trauma from all causes. The recent discovery of low
to 30 percent of them develop hypothyroidism. After brain levels of pituitary hormones in TBI soldiers, coupled with
trauma, the short-term decline in hormones can recover in the known replacement treatments for this disorder, mean
some cases, but there is a high prevalence of long-term defi- that the medical community should launch a broad program
ciencies after severe TBI (Leal-Cerro et al., 2005; Agha et of long-term periodic tests for veterans of head and blast
al., 2004). Chronic adrenal failure can occur because of low injuries.
adrenocorticotropic hormone secretion from the pituitary in
TBI patients.
Neurobehavioral Effects from Traumatic Brain Injury
Most studies found the occurrence of posttraumatic
hypopituitarism to be unrelated to injury severity. In the The linkages between the severity and frequency of blunt
past 2 years, researchers have found that about 42 percent brain trauma to various physical injury classifications listed
of veterans with blast injuries showed abnormally low levels in Table 10-1 are the topics emphasized in this chapter. But
of at least one of the pituitary hormones (Wilkinson et al., there is another classification associated with brain trauma
2012). Some veterans had abnormal levels of vasopressin and that has an association with TBI from all causes. Neu-
oxytocin, and these hormones are linked to psychological robehavioral changes include the specific neuropsychiatric
or behavioral abnormalities. It is not clear if this applies to syndromes of depression, mania, psychoses (e.g., paranoia
ballistic BFD impacts. and obsessive compulsive disease), aggressive behavior, and
Blood tests, some of which are complicated, can assess personality changes as well as cognitive decline. The causal
pituitary function. Positron emission tomography (PET) associations have been debated for 100 years since the early
(Figure 10-6) and MRI, discussed in Appendix F, can papers on shell shock and also more recently because of the
noninvasively image metabolic function and structural prevalence of psychiatric symptoms in veterans from wars of
abnormalities of the pituitary. MRI and PET can visualize the past 70 years. Clear evidence of a causative relationship
anatomical and metabolic changes, respectively, as presented between negative neurobehavior and brain trauma has arisen
in Appendix F. in the past few years from pathological studies on athletes
who have sustained TBI. Yet, despite some continuing skepti-

cism about the lack of objective studies, there is compelling This section of the chapter, on linkages between a bal-
evidence for associations between both behavioral and cog- listic or blast threat and brain injury, is directed toward the
nitive disorders and TBI. From the vast literature of reports important role of computational models, as it is through this
of psychiatric and cognitive evaluations of TBI subjects, two tool that one can equate needed protection from brain injury
cited below have measures of the prevalence. to helmet design. One principal value of M&S in human
Depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem were the prin- injury biomechanics is its ability to obtain information in
cipal disabilities in half of 360 head-injured individuals situations in which it is fundamentally impossible to conduct
evaluated from the group who had survived for 7 years after in vivo tests on the actual system (the human), although
an initial head injury (Whitnall et al., 2006). Another study postmortem testing is possible using human cadaver tests.
showed the prevalence of depression is 6 to 39 percent with This approach may be supplemented by in vivo testing in
mTBIs (Schoenhuber and Gentilini, 1988). animal surrogates to understand force effects on the human
Cognitive impairments 10 years following TBI were body and possible ways to mitigate them. There are cases in
found to be associated with injury severity using tests of which this approach has provided useful insights into injury
attention, processing speed, memory, and executive func- biomechanics such as blast lung injury criteria (Bass et al.,
tion (Draper and Ponsford, 2008). Even mTBI patients may 2008) and to develop test equipment for vehicle collision
perform worse than controls on some tests of reasoning tests against tissue injury criteria. However, as discussed in
(Borgaro et al., 2003). Long-term effects of mild head injury this report, in the particular case of military helmets, evalu-
approximately 8 years post injury included complex atten- ation and acceptance protocols are based exclusively on tests
tion and working memory defects (Vanderploeg et al., 2005). that use head surrogates with poor biofidelity.
Early-onset dementia in particular is frequently associated It is therefore clear that M&S can play a significant role
with head injury history (McMurtray et al., 2006). Repeated both in improving understanding of injury biomechanics and
concussions have been linked to dementia (Guskiewicz et in guiding the design of protective systems with enhanced
al., 2005) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (McKee injury mitigation performance. Analytical approaches
et al., 2009). include mathematical modeling and computer simulations
using advanced constitutive models and coupled fluid-solid
Finding 10-3. An increased prevalence of neurobehavioral mechanics. In the past, these approaches have been chal-
abnormalities has been confirmed from many scientific lenged as inadequate because of limitations in the fidelity
evaluations of individuals involved in TBI incidents. of the computer simulations, realism of the tissue material
properties, and the lack of validation.
10.5 COMPUTATIONAL MODELING AND SIMULATION
Computational Simulations of Brain Injuries from Blunt
Computational modeling and simulation (M&S) has long
Trauma
been considered an invaluable tool for analyzing engineering
systems in a wide range of technology areas. Recently, M&S Ten years ago NHTSA developed a Simulated Injury
has also been used effectively in the broad field of injury Monitor (SIMon), based on a finite-element head model.
biomechanics and to a limited extent in the evaluation and This tool uses vehicle-dummy-head kinematics as an input
design of force protection systems. and estimates the probability of three types of injuries: dif-
M&S can provide a quantitative description of the rel- fuse axonal injury, contusions, and subdural hematomas
evant physical system response that can be used to assess (Takhounts et al., 2003). This system is intended for vehicle
system performance and inform potential improvements. crashes, and it is unclear how the results might apply to bal-
Significant effort has been devoted in the past several decades listic BFD injuries.
to developing the basic science, algorithms, simulation soft- SIMon has been upgraded and recently did evaluations
ware, and hardware infrastructure to meet this goal. How- using input from instrumented helmets on professional
ever, owing to the unique complexities associated with the football players (Takhounts et al., 2008) and vehicle col-
interplay between the physics and biology of injury, the full lisions (von Holst and Li, 2013). A finite element model
potential of M&S in understanding of injury biomechanics of the human head described the dynamic response of the
and the design of protection systems is yet to be realized. brain during the first milliseconds after the impact with
Analytical and computational modeling of ballistic perfo- velocities of 10, 6, and 2 m/s, respectively. Their simula-
ration of materials has been exhaustively reviewed up to 1978 tions show what is called a dynamic triple maxima sequence:
(Backman and Goldsmith, 1978) with an update 10 years (1) strain energy density, (2) intracranial pressure, (3) the
later (Anderson and Bodner, 1988). More recent reviews first principal strain. Limitations of the NHTSA simulation
are provided by King et al. (1995). But the biomechanics system include limited spatial fidelity, uncertainty in brain
of blunt trauma to tissues is a major added complexity to material properties, and limited incorporation of potentially
M&S because of the need to incorporate biophysical and important brain structures such as the hippocampus and the
biomedical parameters. amygdala. For example, the relative motion of the brain and

skull is not modeled well with current computational model injury dating from World War I when soldiers with neurologi-
mesh sizes that do not provide the opportunity for insertion cal and neuropsychological symptoms were labeled “shell
of the anatomy and material properties of vessels and tether shocked” (cf. Bass et al., 2012). The linkage between symp-
points between the brain and the inner table of the skull. For toms and blast exposures is not the subject for this chapter,
example, the tensile strength of the dura material is much but the role of the helmet and face shield in mitigating the
larger than brain tissues. strain field is of great importance.
Several papers (including Moore et al., 2009; Chafi et al.,
2010; Panzer et al., 2011; Przekwas et al., 2011; Nyein et al.,
Simulations of Brain Strains from Ballistic Impacts on
2010; and Sharma and Zhang, 2011) developed human head
Helmeted Head
models from medical imaging data to study the interaction
Finite element simulations to determine expected skull of blast waves with the head, including various anatomical
and brain tissue injuries from ballistic BFD trauma were structures resolved to various scales. Work still remains to
performed in Sweden (Aare and Kleiven, 2007). These were be done on material properties, especially at blast-different
performed using a validated human head and brain model as stress rates (Panzer et al., 2012), but the body of this work
well as a model of the coupling between helmets of various suggests that blasts are a plausible cause of TBI, including
stiffnesses and the head, so that tissue trauma parameters the potential for axonal injury at various locations within
could be assessed based on the ballistic kinetic energy (ca. the brain.
518 J) of an 8 g, 9-mm bullet impact and angle of impact. It has been clearly demonstrated that blasts can lead to
The trauma parameters measured were stress in the cranial the development of significant levels of pressure, volumetric
bone, strain in brain tissue, pressure in the brain, change in tension, and shear stress in focal areas on a short time scale
rotational velocity, and translational and rotational accelera- and that stress patterns are dependent on the orientation of
tion, as shown in Figure 10-7. the blast wave and the complex geometry of the skull, brain,
and tissue interfaces (Taylor and Ford, 2009; Moore et al.,
2009; Panzer et al., 2012).
Computational Simulations of Brain Injury from Blast
A numerical and experimental investigation into the
Recent efforts in computational modeling of traumatic effects of low-level blast exposure on pigs used a two-
physical effects on the central nervous system have focused dimensional pig head model that consisted of a skull model
on blast-induced TBI. A reason for this effort is the need to (Teland et al., 2010). They found that the blast wave propa-
resolve the controversy regarding the mechanism for brain gates directly through the skull and that the orientation of
FIGURE 10-7 Principal strains in simulated brain material from projectile-induced kinetic energy striking a helmet at two angles. Blue is
0 percent, green is 2 percent, and red is >4 percent. SOURCE: Reprinted from Aare and Kleiven (2008), with permission from Elsevier.

the head is important. Another study constructed a better to conduct simulations of the stress and strain distributions
computational pig model consisting of skull, brain, cerebro- after a frontal force of 7 kN impulse of 2.75 ms (Kraft et al.,
spinal fluid, dura, and pia using computed tomography and 2012). They then used a damage model based on data from
MRI data (Zhu et al., 2013). The researchers found high rat experiments to predict cellular death based on axonal
pressures in the frontal and occipital regions, possibly due to strain and strain rate. The temporal and occipital regions
wave reflection at the skull/brain interface. Examining strain, had the largest values of axonal strain and thus the highest
they found that the highest strains of 1.7 percent were in the amount of cellular death. Four days after injury, 19.7 percent
brainstem, and the lowest strains of 0.2 percent were in the of the network edges were fully degraded, but the network of
center of the brain. They also found that strains within the axons remained intact. This type of analysis is new to blast-
skull were two orders of magnitude lower than the strains induced injury research and offers a promising route to con-
within the brain and that the maximum deflection of the skull nect biomechanical response to neurophysiological insight.
was less than 0.5 mm. It is unclear, however, what the brain material properties
Very-high-resolution anisotropic models have been and detailed network behavior are in this basis, because the
developed MRI T1 relaxation weighting and DTI with a underlying experimental work has not been done.
three-dimensional, biofidelic finite-element volume mesh
FIGURE 10-8 Computational simulations of the protective effect of the Advanced Combat Helmet (center column) and face shield (right
column) show a significant attenuation of the transmitted pressure field when compared to the unprotected head (left column). SOURCE:
Nyein et al. (2010).
Figure 10-8 fixed

Figure 10-8 shows results from large-scale computational

simulations to compare the stress fields for blast exposures
involving the head alone, head with helmet, and head with
helmet and face shield (Nyein et al., 2010). Computer-aided
design models of the actual ACH, including foam pads as
well as a conceptual model of a mask protecting the face,
were added to the detailed MRI-based model of the human
head. For front blast conditions, the propagation of stress
waves into the brain tissue is somewhat attenuated by the
existing ACH and significantly attenuated by the addition
of a face cover. This suggests a possible strategy to improve
protection against blast-induced mTBI.
Other recent studies have considered the blast-mitigating
effect of helmets (Panzer et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2011;
Shridharani et al., 2012a; Przekwas et al., 2011). These
FIGURE 10-9 Experimental determination of brain shear modulus
models and measurements have consistently shown strong
(magnitude of the complex shear modulus) showing wide variance
mitigation of blast pressure behind the ACH. Figure 10-9 fixed
of experimental results from different researchers.
Finding 10-4. Computational simulations of the protective

effect of helmet and face shield show a significant attenuation
of the transmitted pressure field.
In conclusion, M&S can prove a valuable tool in the anal-

ysis of the effects of mechanical threats (blast, impact) on
brain tissue. Its main usefulness is in explaining mechanisms
of momentum transfer from the external threat to the internal
tissues, including the identification of areas of the brain that
can be most vulnerable for particular threats. Simulations can
also guide the design of protective gear and the assessment of
the comparative effectiveness in mitigating the effect of the
external threat on brain tissue. There is a clear opportunity
to extend the existing use of M&S in the area of brain injury
biomechanics and protective gear design, as in many other
areas of science and engineering.
10.6 MECHANICAL AND CONSTITUTIVE PROPERTIES

OF TISSUES
FIGURE 10-10 Dependence of shear strain on stress rate shows
Characterization of the dynamic mechanical properties Figure 10-10,
the importance offixed
correct simulation of the shear stress rate in
of brain tissue is important for developing a comprehensive simulations. SOURCE: Adapted from Donelly and Medige (1997).
knowledge of the mechanisms underlying brain injury and
for developing computational models of potential ballistic
and blunt neurotrauma. There are regional, directional, and Figure 10-10. For a given shear stress, the strain on brain
age-dependent changes in the properties of the brain when it tissues is inversely related to the stress rate.
undergoes large deformations (Prange and Margulies, 2002). There has recently been significant progress in the
The frequency dependence of elastic properties must be experimental characterization and constitutive modeling of
included in comprehensive models, along with the frequency the mechanical response of brain tissue (Pervin and Chen,
characteristics of the changing pressure field (Figure 10-9). 2009; Prevost et al., 2011a, b). Tissue response exhibits
Previous brain material characterizations at various stress moderate compressibility, substantial nonlinearity, hys-
rates suffer from wide experimental dispersion (Figure 10-9), teresis, conditioning, and rate dependence. A large-strain
nearly three orders of magnitude in the complex modulus. nonlinear viscoelastic model has been described that suc-
This has made comparison of computational results using cessfully captures the observed complexities of the material
these disparate data difficult (Panzer et al., 2012). Strain is response in loading, unloading, and relaxation (Prevost et al.,
dependent on the shear stress and stress rate, as shown in 2011a). This model covers strain rates—from quasistatic to

dynamic rates—comparable or exceeding those in blast and lations of dynamic transients (impact from ballistic BFD/
ballistic events with stress rates from 0.01 to 3000 s-1. But blunt trauma, blast/shock wave propagation) leading to TBI.
the low-strain-level behavior of brain tissue at high stress
rates is not well known, and currently available results are Finding 10-5. For models and simulations of brain trauma
not reliable because of the experimental methods employed to be meaningful for injury assessments, they should include
to date. The results gathered to date on bovine and porcine constitutive models of brain tissue response that account for
tissue properties have been obtained mostly in vitro (Pervin nonlinear and rate-dependent viscoelastic effects. Viscoelas-
and Chen, 2009; Prevost et al., 2011a). Previous studies on tic brain properties for high rate, low strain levels necessary
brain properties of note were on the juvenile pig (Gefen and for ballistic BFD calculations are not established.
Margulies, 2004). These results might differ quantitatively
from those encountered in vivo, and this knowledge is criti-
10.7 CONCLUSION
cal for the development of biofidelic brain models. Further,
different regions of the brain respond differently to identical The protection of the warfighter afforded by helmets from
mechanical stimuli, as shown in culture studies of the rat threats ranging from bullets, shrapnel, blasts, vehicle colli-
cortex and rat hippocampus. The cortex was less vulnerable sions, and parachute landings has improved with improved
to stretch-induced injury than the hippocampus (Elkin and helmet design and materials. However, the level of protec-
Morrison, 2007). tion from nonfatal brain tissue injuries, which may have
Recently, Prevost et al. (2011b) measured the nonlinear health consequences beyond the acute phase, is not known.
dynamic response of the cerebral cortex to indentation of the This chapter and Chapter 3 give information regarding what
exposed frontal and parietal lobes of anesthetized porcine is known about brain injury from blunt trauma and what
subjects. Measurements included nonlinear, rate-dependent, is known about injury tolerances. In addition, this chapter
hysteretic, and conditioning white and gray matter response defines the types of injuries that occur and most of the meth-
in vivo, in situ, and in vitro. Results showed similar responses ods for diagnosis of both near- and long-term-onset medical
between in vivo and in vitro studies with respect to load conditions.
versus indent and a “stiffening” with increase rate of stress. The principal finding is that there is not a known rela-
The data raise concerns regarding doing measurements in tionship between brain injury to the ballistic parameters of
situ, wherein central circulation and cerebral spinal fluid momentum, rate of change of momentum, acceleration, and
pressures are much less than in vivo. Without the intact dura time duration of the impact force. Findings in Chapter 3
mater, whose tensile strength is much greater than other emphasize that there is no known relationship between the
brain membranes, in vivo or in vitro measurements can be measure of BFD by helmet evaluation protocols and skull
questioned, thus characterization of brain material proper- fracture and brain trauma. This finding is known to the U.S.
ties might best be done by elastography using magnetic Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. Research
resonance techniques in vivo. But elastography does not is already underway on skull fracture injury criteria.3 Link-
have the spatial resolution to give region specific elastic age of the ballistic threats whose physical parameters are
properties and published values might be too low for stud- known to brain injury must include knowledge of the pro-
ies of brain-surface-to-cortex relative motion or strains (cf. tective attenuation of the helmet. The degree to which the
Coats et al., 2012). listed types of brain-injury parameters are moderated by the
Magnetic resonance elastography enables the visalization helmet is not known.
and measurement of mechanical waves propagating in three Vehicle and sports collisions have been studied and mod-
dimensions throughout a sample (Muthupillai et al., 1995; eled with attendant animal experiments. But parameters for
Manduca et al., 2001). From this information, the shear stiff- the rate of change of momentum (i.e., force) and duration
ness of the sample can be inferred. In MRE, oscillating shear of contact are orders of magnitude different from those for
displacements are generated by harmonic vibrations induced ballistic injuries. Therefore, considerations in the design of
mechanically or acoustically on the skull or brain surface. sports and vehicle head protective devices as well as the
The displacements are measured from phase images obtained parameters of injury tolerance are not the same as those
by modulating the gradient field of the magnetic resonance encountered by the warfighter. The committee notes a broad
scanner at the vibration frequency. These measurements have effort to define mechanisms, develop diagnostic methods
already shown the skull acts as a low-pass filter for frequen- for evaluating organic damage to the brain, and methods for
cies of 45, 60, and 80 Hz. Skull transmission decreases, and treatment. But the current principal approach is protection
shear-wave attenuation in the brain increases with increasing from transfer of injurious forces afforded by the helmet.
frequency (Clayton et al., 2012).
Further work is required to continue to improve and
validate constitutive models—not just for brain but also for
3Karin Rafaels, Army Research Laboratory, Survivability/Lethality
bone and other tissues. These models are essential for simu-
Analysis Directorate, “Joint Live Fire Test Program Behind Helmet Blunt
Trauma Skull Injury,” presentation to the committee on January 24, 2013.

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Appendix A
Study Origination Documents
91

LETTER FROM REPRESENTATIVE LOUISE M.

SLAUGHTER TO SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON
PANETTA, JUNE 26, 2012

APPENDIX A 93

RESPONSE TO REP. SLAUGHTER FROM J. MICHAEL

GILMORE, DIRECTOR, OPERATIONAL TEST AND
EVALUATION, JULY 13, 2012

APPENDIX A 95


Appendix B
Protocols for First Article and Lot Acceptance Testing
97

PROTOCOL FOR FIRST ARTICLE TESTING,

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

APPENDIX B 99


APPENDIX B 101


APPENDIX B 103


APPENDIX B 105


APPENDIX B 107


APPENDIX B 109
PROTOCOL FOR LOT ACCEPTANCE TESTING,

MAY 4, 2012


APPENDIX B 111


APPENDIX B 113


APPENDIX B 115


APPENDIX B 117


APPENDIX B 119


APPENDIX B 121

Appendix C
Committee Meetings and Data-Gathering Activities
FIRST COMMITTEE MEETING folio Manager, Blast Injury/Hearing and Vision Protection,
JANUARY 24–25, 2013, ABERDEEN, MARYLAND Military Operational Medicine Research Program, U.S.
Army Medical Research and Material Command.
Objective: To introduce National Research Council
(administrative actions, including committee introductions
The Peepsite Headform. Robert Kinsler, Survivability/
and composition, balance, and bias discussions for com-
Lethality Analysis Directorate, Army Research Laboratory.
mittee members); review committee statement of task with
sponsor; visit the Aberdeen Test Center, examine equipment,
Joint Live Fire Test Program Behind Helmet Blunt Trauma
and receive detailed presentations; and discuss future meet-
Skull Injury. Karin Rafaels, Survivability/Lethality Analysis
ing dates and next steps.
Directorate, Army Research Laboratory.
Briefings and Discussions Protocol Analyses and Statistical Issues Related to Test-
ing Methodologies. Janice Hester, Research Staff Member,
Body Armor Study and Helmet Testing. Cameron R. Bass,
Institute for Defense Analysis.
Thomas F. Budinger, and Ronald D. Fricker, Former mem-
bers, Committee on Testing of Body Armor—Phase II, and
members, Committee to Review Test Protocols Used by the SECOND COMMITTEE MEETING
DoD to Test Combat Helmets. MARCH 21–22, 2013, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Objective: To review documents and data received;
Army Perspectives on Helmet Protection and Perfor-
receive briefings on perspectives on the new protocol; review
mance Requirements and Specifications. Ian Rozansky,
preliminary report outline and confirm committee writing
Project Engineer, Office of the Product Manager for Soldier
assignments; and discuss information-gathering requests,
Protective Equipment, U.S. Army.
and confirm next steps.
Marine Corps Perspectives on Helmet Protection and Per-
formance Requirements and Specifications. Deidre Hooks, Briefings and Discussions
ECH Project Officer, and Kathy Halo, Project Engineer,
Perspectives of the PEO Chief Scientist. James Zheng,
Office of the Product Manager for Soldier Protective Equip-
Chief Scientist, Soldier Protective and Individual Equipment,
ment, U.S. Marine Corps.
PEO Soldier, U.S. Army.
Special Operations Forces Perspectives on Helmet Pro-
Protocol Analyses and Statistical Issues Related to Test-
tection and Performance Requirements and Specifications.
ing Methodologies. Laura Freeman, Research Staff Member,
David Colanto, Project Officer—Helmets Office of the
Institute for Defense Analysis.
Program Manager, Special Operations Forces—Survival,
Support and Equipment Systems (PM SOF-SSES).
Presentation on IOP PED-003. Kyle Markwardt, Test
Officer, Aberdeen Test Center.
Medical Research on Skull Behind Armor Blunt Trauma
(BABT) and Injury Criteria. Richard Shoge, Deputy Port-
122

APPENDIX C 123
DOT&E Issues Update. Christopher Moosmann, Live Helmet Performance Testing with Respect to Head and
Fire Test and Evaluation Office of the Director, Operational Brain Injury Prevention. Carol Chancey, Injury Biomechan-
Test and Evaluation (DOT&E). ics Branch Chief, U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Labora-
tory (via video teleconference).
Perspectives on the New Protocol. Robby Young, Man-
ager of Quality Engineering, Gentex Corporation; David
FOURTH COMMITTEE MEETING
Rogers, Vice President of Concept Development Ops-Core,
JUNE 17–18, 2013, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Artisent LLC (a subsidiary of Gentex); with, by video and
teleconference, Clayton Maddio, Sector Integrator, and Objective: To review documents and data received;
Kenneth Williams, Lead Platform Command Defense Con- receive a briefing from the Office of the DoD Inspector
tract Management Agency. General; review the first-full-message draft; confirm commit-
tee writing assignments; and discuss information-gathering
Perspectives on the New Protocol. Marc A. King, Presi- requests, and confirm next steps.
dent, Ceradyne Armor Systems, Inc.; Vasilios Brachos,
General Manager, Diaphorm Division, and head of R&D for
Briefing
helmet products, Ceradyne, Inc.
Advanced Combat Helmet Technical Assessment. Anna
Ferre, Tom Bulk, Kandasamy Selvavel, and Rajesh Rajen-
THIRD COMMITTEE MEETING
drapillai, Office of the Inspector General.
APRIL 25–26, 2013, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Objective: To review documents and data received; to
FIFTH COMMITTEE MEETING
receive briefings on perspectives on the new protocol; review
JULY 29–30, 2013, WOODS HOLE, MASSACHUSETTS
the concept draft; confirm committee writing assignments;
and discuss information-gathering requests, and confirm Objective: To review documents and data received; review
next steps. the concurrence draft; confirm committee writing assign-
ments; and confirm next steps.
Briefings and Discussions
SIXTH COMMITTEE MEETING
Setting the Specifications for Ballistic Helmets. Frank J.
OCTOBER 10–12, 2013, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Lozano, Product Manager, Soldier Protective Equipment,
U.S. Army. Objective: To review the concurrence draft and reach
concurrence on findings and recommendations.
Blast Injury Research. Natalie Eberius, Predictive Analy-
sis Team Leader, Survivability and Lethality Analysis
Directorate, Army Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving
Grounds.

Appendix D
Test Range Description and the Ballistic Testing Process
The combat helmet test range at Aberdeen Test Center

(ATC) is shown in Figures D-1a and D-1b. The ATC firing
range uses a rifle-like test barrel to fire a projectile against
a helmet. Electronic instrumentation is used to measure
projectile velocity before impact. Tested helmets are affixed
to headforms that are packed with modeling clay, where the
clay serves as a recording medium.
Per the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation
(DOT&E) test protocol, the test range is set up in accordance
with a variety of ATC Test Operating Procedures; see Table
1 in the DOT&E FAT and LAT protocols (DOT&E, 2010, FIGURE D-1b Typical test range at set-up for helmet V0 testing.
2012). The test ranges are environmentally controlled at SOURCE:Figure
ATC (2012).
E-1b fixed
68 ±10°F and a relative humidity of 50 ±20 percent (ATC,
2013).
Per ATC (2013), in the range set-up, the test barrels are
used to measure projectile velocity, and drag is applied to cal-
mounted in a universal receiver, and the weapon is fired using
culate strike velocity. A yaw card is used in conjunction with
a solenoid. A double base configuration of light screens is
a go/no-go gauge to check the striking yaw of the projectile.
In general, the test is conducted in accordance with
National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Standard 0106.01 with the
following four exceptions (NRC, 2012):
• Test items may be conditioned as required.

• Test distances may be altered.
• The ATC headform is modified from the NIJ head-
form with slots in both the coronal and midsagittal
directions.
• Striking velocities are calculated according to the
U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command Interna-
tional Test Operating Procedure 4-2-805 in order to
determine if a shot is fair (DOT&E, 2010).
Ballistic testing of combat helmets involves both the

evaluation of resistance to penetration (RTP) and helmet
FIGURE D-1a The helmet test range at the U.S. Army Aberdeen backface deformation (BFD) as recorded in clay. With the
Test Center. SOURCE: Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen exception of V50 testing, RTP and BFD are measured on a
Test Center, “Helmet IOP PED-003 Briefing to NRC Helmet Proto- metal headform (Figure D-2) packed with Roma Plastilina #1
Figure E-1a fixed
cols Committee,” presentation to the committee on March 22, 2013.
124

APPENDIX D 125
1997) . (See Chapter 6 for further discussion of the V50 cal-

culation methodology.)
Appendix A of the DOT&E FAT protocol (DOT&E, 2010)
specifies the distribution of helmet sizes and impact location
order for V0, V50, and hardware testing. See Chapter 5 for
additional discussion. The DOT&E LAT protocol does not
specify helmet sizes, but impact location order for V0 test-
ing is contained in Appendix B. See Chapter 7 for additional
discussion.
TEST ITEM CONFIGURATION AND IMPACT

LOCATIONS
To allow positioning the headform in the required posi-
tions, the headform used is mounted on a test fixture capable
of being rigidly fixed with six degrees of freedom. Prior to
mounting, the helmet is marked to show the impact locations
and the helmet pads are put into a standard configuration, as
illustrated in Figure D-6.
For V0 testing, the helmet is mounted on the headform in
accordance with IOP PED-003 using the helmet’s suspen-
sion/retention system to hold it on the headform (Figure
D-7). Per IOP PED-003, “The finished helmet will be
FIGURE D-2 U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center headform. mounted on the headform such that it has the standoffs given
SOURCE: NRC (2012). in table from the inside of the crown shell to the top of the
clay (as illustrated in Figure D-3), which ultimately results in crown clay” (ATC, 2013).
a completed test headform such as that shown in Figure D-4. The headform is mounted on the test frame shown in
Per the test methodology, a helmet is placed over the Figure D-8. The helmet is aligned to ensure the target loca-
clay-filled headform. RTP (or V0 testing) is then conducted tion achieves the required obliquity. During the test, the
as a sequence of five ballistic impacts, one each to the front, velocity of the projectile is measured using Oehler Model
rear, left, and right sides of the helmet, and the helmet crown 57 Ballistic Screens to verify that it was within the desired
(Figure D-5). Internal Operating Procedure IOP PED-003 range (NRC, 2010). A fair hit is recorded if the shot location,
specifies the precise requirements for the five impact loca- obliquity, yaw, and shot velocity are within required limits as
tions for V0 9-mm RTP/BFD testing. In addition, the ballistic specified in the DOT&E protocol (and associated reference
forces from the bullet cause an indent in the clay from which documents).
BFD is measured. Current protocol also tests the V50 ballistic
limit using a series of 6 to 14 shots to the five regions of
the helmet at varying velocities per MIL-STD-622F (DoD,
FIGURE D-3 Packing the headform with clay and shaping the clay. SOURCE: Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen Test Center, “Helmet
IOP PED-003 Briefing to NRC Helmet Protocols Committee,” presentation to the committee on March 22, 2013.

FIGURE D-5 Test impact locations. SOURCE: NRC (2012).
Figure E-5, fixed
FIGURE D-4 U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center headform with clay.
SOURCE: Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen Test Center,
“Helmet IOP PED-003 Briefing to NRC Helmet Protocols Commit-
tee,” presentation
Figuer to
E-4the committee on March 22, 2013.
FIGURE D-6 Pad Configuration for V0 resistance to penetration testing for full cut style helmet (top) or the tactical cut style helmet (bottom).
SOURCE: Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen Test Center, “Helmet IOP PED-003 Briefing to NRC Helmet Protocols Committee,”
presentation to the committee on March 22, 2013.
Figure E-6

APPENDIX D 127
Measuring Resistance to Penetration

In V0 testing, resistance to penetration is measured by
visual presence of either (1) the projectile or pieces or frag-
ments of the projectile in the clay of the headform (Figure
D-9) or (2) by a hole that passes thru the helmet shell. For
hardware and V50 testing, penetration is recorded via a wit-
ness plate inserted in the headform. See Figure D-10 for
hardware testing and Figure D-11 for V50 testing witness
plates. V0 testing is conducted with the helmet retention and
pad systems in place, while V50 testing is conducted without
the retention and pad systems.
Measuring Backface Deformation

Helmet BFD, defined as the maximum depth in clay as
measured from the original clay surface at the intended
impact location, is assessed using the nonperforating bal-
listic impacts from RTP testing. It is measured as follows.
After mounting the headform in the test fixture and mount-
ing the helmet on the headform, the helmet is removed from
the headform, and the clay surface is scanned with a Faro®
Quantum Laser Scan Arm laser. The helmet is then reat-
tached to the headform, and the shot taken. The helmet is
again removed from the headform and inspected for penetra-
tion and perforation. The clay is rescanned with the FARO
laser to calculate BFD. Figure D-12 is an illustrative BFD
indentation in the clay.
ATC IOP-002 revision E describes the BFD measure-
ment process using a Faro scanning laser instrument scan
FIGURE D-7 Helmet mounted on a headform. SOURCE: ATC
(2013).
Figure E-7
FIGURE D-8 Test frame and fixture. SOURCE: Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen Test Center, “Helmet IOP PED-003 Briefing to
NRC Helmet Protocols Committee,” presentation to the committee on March 22, 2013.
Figure E-8

arm (Figure D-13) and associated software. As described in

Testing of Body Armor Materials: Phase III:
Laser profilometry, as used by the Faro scanning laser instru-

ment, employs the commonly used principle of optical
triangulation. A laser generates a collimated beam, which
is then focused and projected onto a target surface. A lens
reimages the laser spot formed on the surface of the target
onto a charge-coupled device, which generates a signal
that is indicative of the spot’s position on the detector. As
the height of the target surface changes, the image of the
laser spot shifts owing to parallax. To generate a three-
dimensional image of the specimen’s surface, the sensor
scans in two dimensions, generating a set of noncontact
measurements that represent the surface topography of
the specimen under inspection. The data are then used
to compute the three-dimensional geometrical profile of
the surface, with readings essentially continuous over the
scanned region. Thus, the laser scanner produces a series
of measurements over the whole surface of the clay, as
opposed to the single reading obtained with the digital
caliper (NRC, 2010, pp. 97-98).
Clay Calibration
FIGURE D-9 Example of headform showing a penetration as As described in the Phase II and Phase III body armor
evidenced by the presence of projectile fragments in the clay. reports (NRC, 2010, 2012), the Roma Plastilina #1 clay
Figure
SOURCE: E-9(2013).
ATC currently being used to test helmets and body armor must be
heated to achieve rheological properties consistent with past
FIGURE D-10 Witness plate headforms for hardware testing. SOURCE: Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen Test Center, “Helmet IOP
PED-003 Briefing to NRC Helmet Protocols Committee,” presentation to the committee on March 22, 2013.
Figure E-10

APPENDIX D 129
FIGURE D-11 V50 helmet test mount (left) and associated witness plate (right). SOURCE: ATC (2013).
Figure E-11
FIGURE D-12 Headform showing indent in the clay as a result of

helmetFigure
backface
E-12deformation. SOURCE: Janice Hester, Research
Staff Member, Institute for Defense Analysis, “DOT&E Helmet
Test Protocols Overview: Statistical Considerations and Concerns,” FIGURE D-13 Faro® scanning laser instrument laser scan arm.
presentation to the committee on January 25, 2013. SOURCE: NRC (2012).
Figure E-13

FIGURE D-14 Headform clay conditioning by analogy. SOURCE: Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen Test Center, “Helmet IOP PED-
003 Briefing to NRC Helmet Protocols Committee,” presentation to the committee on March 22, 2013.
Figure E-14
tests. This occurs because the manufacturer has changed the

Roma Plastilina #1 clay composition over time for commer-
cial reasons unrelated to armor and helmet testing.
For helmet testing, the clay in the headform is calibrated
by analogy to a reference 12 inch × 12 inch × 4 inch ply-
wood-backed box of clay.1 Up to eight headforms may be
conditioned with each box as long as the clay in the box and
in the headforms come from the same lot and the headforms
are conditioned within 12 inches of the box (Figure D-14).
Once conditioned, calibration of the box is performed via
drop test in which 2.2-lb, 1.75-in.-diameter steel cylinders
are dropped three times from a height of 78.7±0.8 in. into the
clay box. The test rig is shown in Figure D-15. The clay is
considered to be within calibration if the indentations made
by the steel cylinders are all within 1.0±0.1 in. as measured
by a digital caliper (NRC, 2012).
The first clay headform removed from the oven with the
clay box may be used for up to 45 minutes after the third
drop. The remaining headforms may be used for up to 4 hours
from the time of the third drop and for up to 45 minutes after
being removed from the oven (NRC, 2012).
1Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen Test Center, “Helmet IOP
PED-003 Briefing to NRC Helmet Protocols Committee,” presentation to FIGURE D-15 Clay calibration test rig. SOURCE: ATC (2013).
the committee on March 22, 2013.
Figure E-15

APPENDIX D 131
FIGURE D-16 Examples of helmet conditioning. SOURCE: Kyle Markwardt, Test Officer, Aberdeen Test Center, “Helmet IOP PED-003
Briefing to NRC Helmet Protocols Committee,” presentation to the committee on March 22, 2013.
Helmet Conditioning REFERENCES

First article testing requires ballistic testing after the fol- ATC (Aberdeen Test Center). 2012. Helmet Ballistic Testing Procedures.
lowing conditioning: Internal Operating Procedure PED-003. Aberdeen, Md. March 7.
ATC. 2013. “Helmet Testing Procedures.” Presentation to the Committee
on Review of Test Protocols Used by the DoD to Test Combat Hel-
• Ambient: conditioned at 68 ±10°F and a relative humid- mets on January 25, 2013. Available from National Research Council,
ity of 50 ±20 percent; Washington, D.C.
• High temperature: conditioned at 160 ±10°F for mini- DoD (Department of Defense). 1997. Department of Defense Test Method
mum of 24 hours; Standard: V50 Ballistic Test for Armor. MIL-STD-662F. U.S. Army
Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
• Low temperature: conditioned at −60 ±10°F for mini- DOT&E (Director of Operational Test and Evaluation). 2011. Standardiza-
mum of 24 hours; tion of Combat Helmet Testing. Memorandum from J. Michael Gilm-
• Seawater soak: fully submersed in 3 ft. seawater for ore, Director. September 20, 2011. Office of the Secretary of Defense,
minimum of 3 hours; Washington, D.C. [reprinted in Appendix B]
• Accelerated aging: 30-lb weight on the apex of the DOT&E. 2012. Standard for Lot Acceptance Ballistic Testing of Military
Combat Helmets. Memorandum from J. Michael Gilmore, Director.
shell, conditioned for 4 hours at a temperature of 104 ±2˚F May 4, 2012. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Washington, D.C.
followed by conditioning at a minimum ozone level of 50 +5 [reprinted in Appendix B]
mPa partial ozone pressure for 72 hours; and NRC (National Research Council). 2010. Testing of Body Armor Materi-
• Weather resistance: exposed to 100 kJ/m2 of energy. als for Use by the U.S. Army—Phase II: Letter Report. The National
Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
NRC. 2012. Testing of Body Armor Materials: Phase III. The National
See Figure D-16 (ATC, 2013, slide 17; Marqwardt, 2013, Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
slides 23-26) for examples of helmet conditioning.
For additional details and information about the testing
process, see ATC (2013), the documents listed in Table 1
of the DOT&E FAT and LAT protocols (DOT&E, 2010,
2012), and particularly MIL-STD-3027 [Department of
Defense Test Method for Performance Requirements and
Testing of Body Armor (DoD, 1997)], ATC-IOP-PED-003
(Helmet Testing Procedures), ATC-MMTB-IOP-002 Rev.
E (Measurement of Backface Deformation (BFD) Using
FARO Quantum Laser Scan Arm and Geomagic Qualify for
Helmets), and ATC-MMTB-IOP-004 (Ball Bar Laser Scan-
ning, Rev. A).

Appendix E
Synopsis of Brain Injury Detection Methods
SCOPE than 10 years ago, it has been used to assess sports injuries.
Recently, ANAM was validated in the combat environment.
Methods for detection of brain injury range from observa-
Sixty-six cases and 146 controls were studied with the result
tion of the victim’s behavior to advanced noninvasive imag-
that the simple reaction test, if applied within 72 hours of
ing methods, including the following: report of symptoms
the injury, is a relatively sensitive method to differentiate
and responses to questions that test awareness and memory;
concussed from non-concussed individuals in the combat
sophisticated computer-based neuropsychology computer
environment (Kelly et al., 2012).
tests; and advanced sensing methods of magnetic resonance,
There are a multitutude of cognitive tests that neuropsy-
positron tomography, acoustic, electroencephalographic and
chiatrists and psychologists use to assess and score mental
impedance measurements that enable noninvasive sensing
capabilities. Before the computerization of cognitive tests,
of blood flow, brain metabolism, brain inflammation, brain
these were applied in controlled studies of cognitive abili-
accumulation of markers of injury, and brain electrical
ties in old and young subjects years after experiencing TBI.
properties.
For example, cognitive impairments 10 years following TBI
The status of these methods relative to detection of
were found to be associated with injury severity using tests
traumatic brain injury (TBI) is reviewed here. Blood tests
of attention, mental processing speed, memory, and execu-
for biomarkers of nerve damage are not discussed because,
tive functions (Draper and Ponsford, 2008). An instrument
despite extensive investigations in the search for definitive
that specifically assesses the quality of life in patients with
markers of TBI, none has emerged as specific, timely, and
TBI (Quality of Life after Brain Injury) has been developed
sufficiently sensitive for diagnosis within hours of the con-
(von Steinbüchel et al., 2010). The European Brain Injury
cussive incidents (Svetlov et al., 2009).
Questionnaire (EBIQ) is a clinically reliable instrument to
determine the subjective well-being of individuals with brain
COGNITIVE TESTS injury and to assess changes over time (Sopena et al., 2007).
Detection of brain trauma in the battlefield is based on the
signs and symptoms of mental status ranging from uncon-
sciousness to symptoms such as confusion, memory loss, MRI IMAGING
slurred speech, headaches, and dizziness. An assignment
Of the major methods that have known efficacy in the
of concussion is based on these symptoms. The concept of
examination of the brain in vivo (i.e., electroencephalogram
concussion is imprecise and not related to a specific neuro-
[EEG], x-ray computer tomography [CT], emission tomog-
logical mechanism, nor have methods of quantification of the
raphy, magnetic resonance imaging [MRI]). MRI is the one
severity of a concussive event been available until recently.
that can provide noninvasive information specific to most of
The most commonly used method for detection of con-
the pathologies (e.g., Gutierrez-Cadavid, 2005; Benson et al.,
cussion in combat zones and during sports events is neuro-
2012). MRI can provide a wealth of information regarding
psychological testing. The assessment tool for concussion in
organ changes associated with ballistic trauma to the body,
the battlefield is the Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics
as has already been shown in studies of blast-injured veterans
(ANAM). The method is a 20-minute computer based evalua-
(Van Boven et al., 2009). Below is a synopsis of the specific
tion that tests reflex times and some measures of memory and
capabilities for noninvasive measurements by MRI.
cognitive abilities. After development by the military more
132

APPENDIX E 133
• Brain contusion. Edema is an expected early sign water diffusion (fractional anisotropy). Fractional anisotropy
of contusion and will appear as a bright signal on metric varies from 0 to 1. Low values indicate less directional
T2-weighted or fluid-attenuated inversion recovery diffusion and relatively less fiber orientation suggestive of
(FLAIR) MRI. The appearance of edema on MRI damage. This MRI method has been found to delineate white
is variable (Gutiereex-Cadavid, 2005). T1-weighted matter defects in TBI, and these defects were correlated with
protocols might give a sensitive diagnosis, as will neuro-cognitive function (Lipton et al., 2008, Kumar et al.,
other protocols. 2009; Jorge et al., 2012). Some caution should be exercised
• Brain edema. Edema resulting from vascular com- in making inferences from the MRI studies as being directly
promise (i.e., air emboli from lung damage), pres- related to organic nerve injury. A recent study found DTI
sure impulse transmitted from the periphery to the abnormalities in combat-exposed soldiers that normalized
brain, or ischemic damage from other causes can after 1.5 years, but the soldiers had neither posttraumatic
be detected by MRI diffusion-weighted imaging stress disorder (PTSD) nor TBI (van Wingen et al., 2012).
sequences, FLARE, and possibly by T1-weighted As discussed in Chapter 10, a number of clinical imaging
protocols. studies with MRI have shown associations between white
• Vasospasm. Vasospasm is of major importance and matter neuronal track disruptions inferred from images and
perhaps the least understood. Vasospasm is a narrow- symptoms associated with blunt trauma and blast injuries in
ing of the small arteries of the brain and frequently veterans months and years after return from the battlefield
follows subdural hematoma, but also can occur as (Mac Donald et al., 2011; Yeh et al., 2013). However, in one
a consequence of blunt trauma without hematoma. study, white matter injuries were not revealed by magnetic
The onset of vascular spasm can be a few days after resonance DTI on veterans with mild TBI, despite their
trauma, and as vessel narrowing limits blood supply symptoms of compromised verbal memory (Levin et al.,
to parts of the brain, vasospasm is a major cause of 2010).
morbidity. The importance of vasospasm has not been
generally recognized (Ortell et al., 2005). It can be
Functional MRI
detected by magnetic resonance angiography (MRA)
or Doppler ultrasound. The majority of cases of vaso- Functional MRI (fMRI) involves evaluation of the
spasm reviewed at the National Naval Medical Center changes in local blood flow and volume due to an external
were blast trauma victims (Armonda et al., 2012). stimulus such as a visual challenge or memory test (Figure
• Hemorrhage. Early signs of hemorrhage usually E-1). It is also known as blood oxygen level dependent
occur due to tears in the tributary surface veins that (BOLD) MRI. This is an objective test of brain functioning
bridge the brain surface to the dural venous sinus. and has been found to correlate with some post-concussion
T2-weighted MRI can show the accumulation of symptom metrics such as visual memory (Talavage et al.,
blood as a bright signal initially, with an evolution 2013).
to a dark signal in 2 to 3 days and back again to a Instrumentation availability and costs vary widely—from
bright signal within the first 2 weeks (Taber et al., a permanent magnet system for small animals at less than
2003, Tong et al., 2003). The choice of magnetic $0.5 million to elaborate systems that combine magnetic
resonance (MR) protocol is important here as it has resonance with PET at over $2 million. Most studies can be
been shown that susceptibility-weighted MR imaging enabled through collaboration with medical clinics.
depicts significantly more small hemorrhagic lesions
than does conventional gradient echo (GRE) MR
Magnetoencephalography
imaging and, therefore, has the potential to improve
the diagnosis of small hemorrhagic lesions as well as Mapping the origin of ionic current densities in the brain
diffuse axonal injury (Tong et al., 2003). by detection of the induced magnetic fields at the surface of
the human head has been employed in neurophysiological
investigations and surgical applications to treat epilepsy as
Neuronal Architecture Imaging Methods
well as to identify functioning tissues in tumor surgery. The
Neural axon injury might be the most subtle, yet the principal attribute of magnetoencephalography is its ability
most important, pathology that requires early imaging for to provide high temporal fidelity information of the activity
diagnosis (Mayorga, 1997). Experience has shown that this of parts of the brain with limited spatial resolution. The com-
pathology occurs in the corpus callosum and brain stem. bination of magnetoencephalography with MRI methods,
Diffusion-weighted imaging (Huisman et al., 2003) and including MRI tractography (a method of displaying major
T1-weighted protocols have been replaced by diffusion nerve bundles in the brain through detection of proton dif-
tensor imaging (DTI) because DTI has been found to be a fusion principal tensor component), has promise for identi-
sensitive indicator of white matter defects. DTI is able to fication of late manifestions of neuronal dysfunction in TBI
detect damage to axonal tracts using a measure of directional patients (Larson-Prior et al., 2013).

FIGURE E-1 Brain alterations shown on functional imaging without behavioral changes. fMRI image of highschool football players without
clinically diagnosed concussion, performing neurocognitive testing before football season and during football season: Even in the absence
of concussion (in 8 out of 21 athletes), fMRI shows changes in stimulated blood flow that are correlated with a poorer performance in
neurocognitive testing. SOURCE: Talavage et al. (2013). The publisher of this copyrighted material is Mary nn Liebert, Inc., publishers.
PET AND SPECT IMAGING resolution in instruments designed for animal studies can
be 2 mm or less. Normally, the spatial resolution for large
Whereas magnetic resonance spectroscopy of specific
animals and human subjects is 4 to 6 mm. The tracers avail-
volumes of the brain can define the chemical status of, for
able allow studies of blood flow, glucose uptake (commonly
example, bioenergetic molecules (e.g., adenosine triphos-
interpreted as cerebral metabolism), dopamine transporters
phate [ATP], creatine phosphate, etc.) for most studies
and receptors, muscarinic system activity, and blood brain
of brain metabolism and neuroreceoptor concentrations,
permeability. PET and SPECT instrumentation for small
emission tomography (single photon emission tomography
animal studies is available from a number of vendors. Large
[SPECT] and positron tomography [PET]) is the sensitive
animal studies can be accomplished through collaborators at
measurement method. Pathophysiological perturbations in
medical institutions where the requisite approvals for use of
the following parameters can be imaged by PET:
radionuclides are already in place.
• Oxygen utilization,
• Regional glucose metabolism, Metabolism Imaging
• Regional blood flow and vasospasm detection,
Since the early 1980s, cerebral glucose metabolism
• Permeability,
associated with dementia has been quantitatively imaged
• Neuroreceptor concentrations,
in patients using 18F-fluoro-deoxyglucose and positron
• Inflammation,
tomography. Recent human studies in boxers showed pat-
• Beta amyloid deposits associated with dementia, and
terns of hypometabolism using the accumulation of 18F-
• Tau protein associated with brain trauma and
deoxy-glucose (Provenzano et al., 2010), but one must be
dementia.
careful not to interpret hypometabolism when the reason for
less apparent tracer uptake is tissue atrophy or decreases in
The methods are noninvasive and can be repeated over
blood flow rather than a decrease in the metabolic uptake
the course of hours or days. Whereas PET and SPECT are
mechanism. An important application of PET evaluation of
readily available in medical centers, not all experimentalists
brain glucose uptake is to study the effects of low growth
will have these instruments and the required radioisotopes
hormone associated with trauma-induced hypopituitarism
available, particularly for small animal studies. The spatial
because brain glucose metabolism increases after growth

APPENDIX E 135
hormone stimulation in patients with hypopituitarism. PET Tau Protein Imaging

using 13N-labeled ammonia was shown to be an important
Studies at autopsy have shown the occurrence of tissue
method for detection of pituitary dysfunction in a limited
responses to trauma, including tau (T-tau) hyperphosphory-
study (Zang et al., 2005).
lated protein (Blennow et al., 1995; Zetterberg et al., 2001),
c-Fos and c-Myc expression, deposition of b-APP (Säljö et
Inflammation Imaging al., 2002), glial fibrillar acidic protein (GFAP), and fibril-
lar light protein (FL-P). The most recent and promising
Detection of inflammation in the brain is facilitated by
noninvasive detection method for neurochemistry of the
PET compounds that localize in the receptors on the surface
brain in mild cognitive impairments (MCIs) and behavioral
of brain cells that are part of the inflammation response
disorders subsequent to multiple episodes of blunt trauma is
(Cagnin et al., 2001; Figure E-2). Amyloid depositions seen 18F-ligands for aggregates of the protein tau known to accu-
in nontrauma-based dementia (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease) can
mulate in injured brain tissue. A few years ago, a successful
be quantified by a 11C- PET agent (Klunk et al., 2001) and
study in vitro and in small animals revealed the potential of
recently a 18F agent. Because autopsy and spinal fluid assays
PET to visualize tau protein using a fluoroethoxyquinoline
have demonstrated that a biomarker for dementias and blunt
compound and the positron emitter 18F (Fodero-Tavoletti et
brain trauma is phosphorylated tau protein, a quest for a
al., 2011). The first human studies with another agent for
suitable ligand that would specifically accumulate in regions
amyloid and tau protein, called FDDPN, was associated with
of the brain having excesses of tau protein has led to some
the pattern of glucose accumulation deficits in Alzheimer’s
successes. Tau protein is the main component in neurofibril-
disease patients (Barrio et al., 2008) and shortly thereafter,
lary tangles seen in Alzheimer’s disease and the pathologic
the accumulation in the brains of symptomatic pro-football
protein associated with dementias such as Pick’s disease, cor-
veterans was demonstrated (Small et al., 2013).
ticobasal degeneration, and progressive supranuclear palsy.
ULTRASOUND FOR BRAIN BLOOD FLOW

Measurements of blood flow in the brain basal arteries
and the carotids by transcranial Doppler (Jaffres et al., 2005;
Visocchi et al., 2007) are surrogates for estimating cerebral
vascular resistance and are effective methods for detection
of vasospasm associated with abnormally high velocities.
These measurements rely on the skill of the operator. Vascu-
lar spasm can occur late after brain injury (Armonda et al.,
2012) and will result in a change in the flow characteristics
(Jaffres et al., 2005; Kochanowicz et al., 2006; Oertel et al.,
2005) with eventual change in electrical impedance (Fritz
et al., 2005). Ultrasound instrumentation is generally more
available than the other radiological imaging systems for
human studies. Specialized small animal systems are now
available to the researcher.
ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY AND ELECTRICAL

IMPEDANCE
Electroencephalography and electrical impedance tomog-
raphy are two techniques that might be used to assess
parenchymal integrity through measurement of electrical
properties both during the acute phase of ballistic trauma
and during posttrauma intervals up to years. Both approaches
require sensitive instruments and are plagued with electrode
coupling noise. However, in previously successful large
and small animal experiments, EEG measurements (Drobin
FIGURE E-2 Positron tomography image showing sites of inflam- et al., 2007) and impedance measurements (Klein et al.,
mation using the tracer 11C-PK11195 with superposition of the 1993; Olsson et al., 2006; Harting et al., 2010) have shown
positron emission tomography emission on a magnetic resonance the kinetics of brain physiologic response to blunt trauma.
imaging anatomical image. SOURCE: Cagnin et al. (2007), with Methods for field measurements of brain electrical potentials
kind permission from Springer Science & Business Media.

and impedance are available, and their development has Kelly, M.P., R.L. Coldren, R.V. Parish, M.N. Dretsch, M.L. Russell. 2012.
promise using modern electrode systems and signal process- Assessment of acute concussion in the combat environment. Archives
of Clinical Neuropsychology 27:375-388.
ing (Budinger, 1996). Klein, H.C., W. Krop-Van Gastel, K.G. Go, and J. Korf. 1993. Prediction of
specific damage or infarction from the measurement of tissue impedance
following repetitive brain ischaemia in the rat. Neuropathology and Ap-
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Appendix F
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
Vijayan N. Nair, Chair, is the Donald A. Darling professor of 2011) and the ASA Section on Quality and Productivity
statistics and professor of industrial and operations engineer- (2006). Dr. Anderson-Cook holds a Ph.D. in statistics from
ing at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Previously, he the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, as
was a research scientist at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey well as an M.S. in statistics (University of Toronto, Toronto,
for 15 years. His areas of expertise include quality improve- Ontario, Canada).
ment and system development, particularly in industrial
applications. Dr. Nair has done extensive consulting work Cameron R. Bass is director of the Injury Biomechanics
with the automotive and telecommunications industries. He Laboratory in the Biomedical Engineering Department at
is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement Duke University. He is a recognized expert in blast and
of Science, the American Statistical Association (ASA), ballistic injury risk modeling with more than 15 years
the American Society for Quality (ASQ), and the Institute of experience in biomechanics. This includes substantial
of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). Dr. Nair is currently experience in developing biomechanical injury models of
president of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and is blast, ballistic, and blunt trauma. Following postdoctoral
past-president of the International Society for Business and experience (on an a National Science Foundation fellowship)
Industrial Statistics. He served as editor of Technometrics developing injury biomechanics models for blunt impact at
and is currently co-editor-in-chief of the International Sta- the University of Virginia, Dr. Bass established a military
tistical Review. He was a member of the National Research and high-rate biomechanics program at the University of
Council (NRC) Committee on National Statistics, the NRC Virginia Center for Applied Biomechanics, which he ran
Board on Mathematical Sciences and their Applications, from 1995 to 2008. Since 2008, he has led efforts in bio-
and has served on several NRC panels on statistics and test- mechanics at Duke University in the Injury Biomechanics
ing in defense acquisition. He holds a Bachelor’s degree Laboratory. One initial focus of the program was cranial,
in Economics from the University of Malaya and a Ph.D. thoracic, and spinal injuries from behind-armor blunt
in statistics from the University of California, Berkeley. trauma and other biomechanically based injury risk func-
tions. In recent years, Dr. Bass’s program has focused on the
Christine M. Anderson-Cook has been a research scientist assessment of brain and thoracic trauma from primary blast
in the Statistical Sciences Group at Los Alamos National and high-rate blunt trauma. He has developed animal and
Laboratory since 2004. Her current research areas include human cadaver models for assessing blast injuries, includ-
design of experiments, response surface methodology, ing the first large animal model, which demonstrated diffuse
system reliability, and multiple criteria optimization. She injury to axons from short-duration blasts that do not cause
was a faculty member in the Department of Statistics at fatality from pulmonary trauma. Dr. Bass has more than
the Virginia Polytechnic and State University from 1996 to 80 peer-reviewed publications in biomechanics, including
2004. Dr. Anderson-Cook is a fellow of the ASA as well as blast and blunt injury biomechanics and tissue biomechan-
the ASQ. She has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications ics. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.
in professional statistics and interdisciplinary journals and is
currently serving on the editorial boards of Technometrics, Thomas F. Budinger (NAE/IOM) holds concurrent posi-
the Journal of Quality Technology, Quality and Reliability tions with the University of California, Berkeley (UCB),
Engineering International, and Quality Engineering. She has where he is a professor of the Graduate School, and Law-
served as the Chair of the ASQ Statistics Division (2010- rence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) where he is
138

APPENDIX F 139
senior scientist. He is professor emeritus at University of versity, and a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Acad-
California, San Francisco, where he was a professor of radi- emy. Upon graduation from the Naval Academy, he served
ology from 1984 to 2008 and previously served as director of as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy. Dr. Fricker is
the Magnetic Resonance Science Center and Research PET a fellow of the ASA and an elected member of the Interna-
[Positron Emission Tomography] (1993-1997). At UCB, he tional Statistical Institute. He has published widely in pro-
has been a professor of bioinstrumentation, electrical engi- fessional journals and is on the editorial boards of Statistics,
neering, and computer sciences since 1976 and is the found- Politics and Policy, and the International Journal of Quality
ing chair of the Department of Bioengineering. Dr. Budinger Technology and Engineering. He has served as the chair of
was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1996 the section on Statistics in Defense and National Security
and to the Institute of Medicine in 1990. He has authored (SDNS) of the ASA and, prior to the creation of SDNS, he
numerous papers on biomedical electronics, aging, cardio- was a member of the Committee on Statisticians in Defense
vascular physiology, bioastronautics, image processing and and National Security, serving as both chair and vice chair.
reconstruction, nuclear magnetic resonance, positron emis-
sion tomography, reconstruction tomography, and inverse Peter N. Fuller (Major General, U.S. Army retired) is the
problem mathematics. Dr. Budinger received a B.S. in president and chief operating officer at Cypress Interna-
chemistry from Regis College, an M.S. degree in physical tional, a business development and acquisition management
oceanography from the University of Washington, Seattle, an consulting firm operating for over 36 years. Previously, he
M.D. in medicine from the University of Colorado, Denver, was the deputy commander for programs, NATO Training
and a Ph.D. in medical physics from UCB. He served in the Mission—Afghanistan, and was responsible for planning
Arctic and Antarctica as a U.S. Coast Guard officer. and executing resources in order to generate and sustain the
Afghan security forces. He integrated and synchronized all
Michael J. Cushing recently retired as director of the U.S. processes to include requirements generation, acquisition,
Army Evaluation Centers Reliability and Maintainability funding, construction, logistics, and contract management
Directorate. In this position he directed the evaluation of 550 for a yearly program valued at over $10 billion dollars com-
active Army and Department of Defense (DoD) systems with prised of infrastructure, equipment, training, and sustainment
respect to their reliability and maintainability characteristics. efforts. He also coordinated with external organizations such
Dr. Cushing earned a B.S. degree in electronic engineering as the Defense Contract Management Agency, Corps of
and computer science from Johns Hopkins University and Engineers, Joint Task Force-435, NATO International Secu-
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in reliability engineering from the rity Assistance Force, ISAF Joint Command, Combined Air
University of Maryland, College Park. During 30 years in Power Transition Force, Office of the Secretary of Defense,
military reliability, he authored numerous publications, and the Joint Staff. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan,
helped formulate and implement a variety of Army and he was Program Executive Officer—Soldier. In his capacity
DoD reliability policies, and contributed towards several as PEO Soldier, General Fuller was responsible for ensuring
reliability standards. all Soldiers were lethal, survivable and able to operate in any
environment. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in
Robert G. Easterling is retired from Sandia National Labo- 1980 after graduating from the University of Vermont with a
ratories where he was a statistical consultant, manager, and B.A. in history and political science. He also holds an M.S. in
senior scientist. He spent the majority of his career investi- public administration from Shippensburg University, an M.S.
gating and promoting the application of statistical methods in military arts and sciences from the U.S. Army Command
to various engineering issues, with emphasis on statistical and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and
methods for reliability evaluation. He is a fellow of the an M.S. in resourcing of the national security strategy from
ASA, a former editor of Technometrics, and a recipient of the the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Fort McNair,
ASQ’s Brumbaugh Award. Since retirement from Sandia, he Washington, D.C. General Fuller’s assignments include
has been an itinerant visiting professor at various universi- assistant director for acquisition (PATRIOT), Ballistic Mis-
ties and has taught an introductory statistics short course at sile Defense Organization, Washington, D.C.; systems coor-
Sandia. He holds a Ph.D. in statistics from Oklahoma State dinator, U.S. Army Staff for Anti-Armor Missiles; project
University. manager, Stryker Brigade Combat Team; deputy command-
ing general of the U.S. Army Research, Development and
Ronald D. Fricker, Jr., is a professor at the Naval Postgradu- Engineering Command, Fort Belvoir, Virginia; and Program
ate School. His current research is focused on the perfor- Executive Officer—Soldier, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
mance of various statistical methods for use in biosurveil-
lance, particularly epidemiologic surveillance, and statistical Raúl Radovitzky is the associate director, Institute for Sol-
process control methodologies more generally. Dr. Fricker dier Nanotechnologies, and a professor of aeronautics and
holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in statistics from Yale University, astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
an M.S. in operations research from George Washington Uni- Dr. Radovitzky was born in Argentina and educated at the

University of Buenos Aires, where he obtained his civil Ernest Seglie is retired from the position of science advi-
engineering degree. He received his S.M. in applied math- sor of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Operational
ematics from Brown University and his Ph.D. in aeronautical Test and Evaluation. His responsibilities included providing
engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He scientific and technical guidance on the overall approach to
joined MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics DoD evaluation of the operational effectiveness and suit-
in 2001 as the Charles Stark Draper Assistant Professor. ability of major DoD weapons systems. He received a B.S.
Dr. Radovitzky’s research interests are in the development in physics from Cooper Union and a Ph.D. in theoretical
of advanced concepts and material systems for blast, bal- nuclear physics from University of Massachusetts. He taught
listic, and impact protection. To this end, his research group at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Yale University
develops theoretical and computational descriptions of the before joining the Institute for Defense Analyses in 1979.
physical event and its effects on structures and humans, He received the Andrew J. Goodpaster Award for Excellence
including advanced computational methods and algorithms in Research in 1987, the International Test and Evaluation
for large-scale simulation. The resulting models help to Association 2009 Allen R. Matthews Award for “leadership
improve the understanding of the various physical compo- and technical contributions to the evaluation of operational
nents of the problem and thus to design protective systems. effectiveness and suitability,” and the National Defense
Dr. Radovitzky’s educational interests include computational Industrial Association Walter W. Hollis Award in 2009. In
mechanics, continuum mechanics, aerospace structures, addition, he received the President of the United States’ Rank
mechanics of materials, numerical methods, and high- Conferral of Meritorious Senior Professional in 2003 and the
performance computing. He is a member of the American Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, International Asso- in 2010, which included mention that he “led the drive to
ciation of Computational Mechanics, American Academy apply statistical methods to test design and evaluation.”
of Mechanics, Materials Research Society, U.S. Association Recent areas of interest include test and evaluation policy in
of Computational Mechanics, and American Society of DoD, and reliability.
Mechanical Engineers.

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COMMITTEE ON REVIEW OF TEST PROTOCOLS USED BY THE DOD

VIJAYAN N. NAIR, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Chair

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

BOARD ON ARMY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

DAVID M. MADDOX, Independent Consultant, Arlington, Virginia, Chair

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2 EVOLUTION OF COMBAT HELMETS 11

3 THREATS, HEAD INJURIES, AND TEST METHODOLOGIES 15

4 COMBAT HELMET TESTING 25

5 HELMET PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND TRENDS IN TEST DATA 32

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

6 FIRST ARTICLE TESTING PROTOCOLS FOR RESISTANCE TO PENETRATION: STATISTICAL 39

7 TEST PROTOCOLS FOR BACKFACE DEFORMATION: STATISTICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND 48

8 LOT ACCEPTANCE TESTING 54

10 LINKING HELMET PROTECTION TO BRAIN INJURY 70

A Study Origination Documents 91

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Tables, Figures, and Box

5-1 Summary of Resistance to Penetration Test Data, 34

10-1 Categories of Brain Injuries, 71

2-1 Evolution of helmets from World War I to present, 12

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

xiv TABLES, FIGURES, AND BOX

5-1 Illustrative backface deformation (BFD) laser scan, 33

6-1 Operating characteristic (OC) curve for (c = 1, n = 40) test plan, 40

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

TABLES, FIGURES, AND BOX xv

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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

ACH advanced combat helmet (Army) M medium

ICP intracranial pressure R&R repeatability and reproducibility

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

xviii ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

6 FIRST ARTICLE TESTING PROTOCOLS FOR RESISTANCE TO PENETRATION: STATISTICAL 39

7 TEST PROTOCOLS FOR BACKFACE DEFORMATION: STATISTICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND 48