A system for quantifying the cooling effectiveness of bicycle helmets

This article describes the design and development of a system that is capable of quantifying the thermal comfort of bicycle helmets. The motivation for the development of the system stems from the desire both to increase helmet use and to provide the designer with a quantitative method of evaluating the thermal comfort of a helmet. The system consists of a heated mannequin head form, a heated reference sphere, a small wind tunnel, and a data acquisition system. Both the head form and the reference sphere were instrumented with thermocouples. The system is capable of simulating riding speeds ranging from 4.5-15.5 m/s. A cooling effectiveness, C1, that is independent of both ambient conditions and wind velocity is defined as a measure of how well the helmet ventilates as compared to the reference sphere. The system was validated by testing six commercially available bicycle helmets manufactured between approximately 1992 and 1998.