Meru Ascent Carbon Head Restraint With IDS

Meru’s revolutionary Inertia Dampening System(IDS) has single-handedly changed how Frontal Head Restraint(FHR) manufactures will design their restraints moving forward and will push safety organizations to rewrite their current safety standards. The old thought process of leaving concussion prevention to the helmets has been upended and Meru has pushed FHR manufactures to take concussions seriously. Meru’s proprietary Inertia Dampening System will hold a competitive advantage in both concussion and neck safety.

A CLIMB TO CONCUSSION PREVENTION.
• IDS controls the head’s entire movement forward in an impact.
• IDS prevents a sudden stop in an impact.
• IDS reduces both linear and angular acceleration.
• IDS has speed sensitive valving to ensure driver comfort and safety.
• IDS reduces both concussion causing forces and upper neck tension.
• IDS can withstand thousands of impacts
• In a 70G impact IDS reduced the force through the head from over 300lbs with our best competitor, to just over 60lbs with our device, a near 80% reduction in force.
• Hundreds of pounds under the SFI and FIA upper neck tension threshold.
• Carbon Fiber Headrest and Collar.
• Carbon Kevlar burst panel.
• All titanium hardware.
• Fully customized CNC’d dampener with propriety IDS technology featuring
speed sensitive valving to maximize both safety and comfort.
• Moving headrest allows for universal use in all seating positions.

The forces to the head in the majority of auto racing accidents come from rotational energy which promotes angular acceleration. It has become rare to have a direct linear impact to the head. Traditional FHR's solid construction and tethering prevent the ability to mitigate angular acceleration forces. With traditional FHR’s in an impact the brain and head immediately speed up and then come to an immediate stop when the tether stops the helmet, which has a similar effect to hitting your head on a wall despite not leaving a scratch on the helmet.

IDS technology immediately begins slowing the impact down, controlling the helmet's movement forward, thereby reducing the transfer of angular acceleration forces to the head and brain.

LOW-THRESHOLD ENERGY
Recent medical research has provided alarming conclusions surrounding the causes, severity, and long-term effects of concussions. Even seemingly minor concussions may have much more serious long-term effects on the brain, especially when frequency is increased.

The current crop of head restraints focus on limiting upper neck tension and leaving concussion prevention up to the helmet companies.

With this well noted, the vast majority of impacts one might experience in auto racing qualify as low-threshold energy impacts; impacts well below the certification standards' pass/fail velocities, but severe enough to sustain a concussion or a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Bumpy tracks, a big cushion in dirt cars, or a string of small crashes can do enough jarring to sustain a concussion or TBI without any obvious carnage to pair it with. IDS starts working the instant an impact begins and the speed sensitive valving makes the technology more compliant and progressive over a broad range of impact velocities common in ‘real world’ racing while still exceeding the global standard pass/fail requirements.

HIGH-VELOCITY IMPACTS
Across the entire range of potential impact velocities, the Meru Ascent FHR with IDS technology consistently outperforms competitive designs. Meru meticulously engineers the collar, headrest, hardware, guards and IDS to provide the best possible impact mitigation performance across all impact velocities for both angular and linear accelerations.

In a 70G force impact at the cape crash testing lab in Indianapolis, the Meru Ascent FHR with IDS reduced the concussion causing forces through the head from over 300 pounds with our best competition to just 63 pounds with our restraint. We were able to make those gains without giving up low-threshold energy protection or sacrificing neck safety.

TIME-TO-PEAK (TTP)
Time-to-Peak (TTP) is how long it takes the energy of an impact to reach maximum g-force. Deceleration time is the single most beneficial component in reducing the severity and magnitude of any impact — the more time, the less energy transferred.

Because of our proprietary IDS technology, our speed sensitive dampener progressively lowers the head's velocity and almost triples the time to peak, spreading our already drastically reduced load over nearly triple the time.

UPPER-NECK TENSION
The original FHR’s were designed to limit upper neck tension. At the time auto racing's biggest problem was basal skull fracture. Caused by the whiplash motion in an impact, basal skull fracture often severed spinal cords, resulting in death. The original FHR designs did wonders for limiting how far forward the helmet could travel in an impact eliminating the finished whipping motion.

In testing to see how well FHR’s do at preventing basal skull fracture, we look at upper neck tension. This number is the main pass/fail standard for the safety organization.

In our mission of concussion prevention, the original FHR goal of lowered upper neck tension was not lost on us and we were able to come in several hundred pounds below the set standard either matching or besting the current industry leaders.