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European standards for
motorcycle clothing
by Chris Bennett
Two European standards
for motorcyclists'
protective clothing
include specific abrasion
and impact tests.
Two of the most common hazards associated
with a motorcycle accident are abrasion and
impact injuries. For this reason, the current
European (EN) standards for motorcyclists’
PPE include tests to assess protection against
these two hazards. Below is a summary of
test principles.
Impact abrasion test –
EN 13595-2:2002
In the world of textile testing there are many
well-established procedures and pieces of
test equipment for assessing the resistance
of a material to abrasion. However, when
the European standard for protective
clothing for motorcyclists was first published
in 2002, it included a new abrasion test
that was different from any being performed
at the time. The important and significant
difference with the new test, detailed in EN
13595-2:2002, was that it was designed to
simulate what would happen during a reallife motorcycle accident when a rider falls
from his or her machine.
The test incorporates a ‘rolling road’
covered with an abrasive material. The test
starts with the sample being impacted
against the moving abradant. The impact
phase of the test is important as it can cause
significant damage to the test specimen. The
overall damage at the end of the test was
considered by the European technical
committee developing the test methods to be
highly representative of that seen in
motorcyclists’ suits from real-life crashes.
SATRA Spotlight
Specifically, the test involves a 49N
(newton) weighted sample being dropped
through a distance of 50mm onto a 60 grit
abrasive belt moving at a speed of eight
metres per second (8m/s) – approximately
18mph. The test ends when the sample is
holed – indicated by a trip wire, placed
underneath the test specimen, being broken.
The result reported is the time (in seconds)
to cause holing. To ensure consistent results,
the abrasive power of the belt is assessed
using two layers of a standard reference
fabric and the specimen’s abrasion time is
corrected accordingly.
Impact performance – EN 1621-1:2012
The severity of injuries to the body tends to
increase with contact pressure (force per
unit area). Hence, a given force is likely to
cause a more severe injury when it is
applied to a smaller area of the body.
Therefore, impact protectors worn
during motorcycling, and activities such as
contact sports, are designed to reduce the
contact pressure on the body during a
collision. They do this, firstly, by increasing
the contact area – usually by using a hard
outer shell – and, secondly, by reducing the
peak force applied – usually by increasing
the duration of the impact through a
reduction in the relative deceleration
between the body and the object being
impacted by use of a deformable material.
The principle of the EN 1621-1:2012
test used to assess the protective qualities of
so-called ‘body-armour’ worn on the limb
joints while riding a motorcycle, involves
dropping a weight onto the sample, which
is placed over a rigid metal hemispherical
anvil with a radius of 50mm. This in turn is
connected to a rigid and massive base via
a high-speed force sensor.
The weight (a 5kg impactor with a flat
strike face 80mm x 40mm) is dropped onto
the sample from the necessary height
(approximately 1m) to generate an impact
speed of 4.47m/s. This equates to an
impact energy of 50 joules. During the
impact, the force transmitted through the
sample to the anvil is measured by the
high-speed force transducer. The lower this
force, the more protective a product is
considered to be. Hence, the standard
includes a requirement for a mean
maximum transmitted force of less than
35kN. The impact test is carried out after
subjecting the sample to various pretreatment conditions.
Other tests covered in the European
standards for motorcyclists’ clothing include
resistance of the structural materials to
tearing, cutting and bursting.
How can SATRA help?
Please email [email protected] for further
information on motorcycle clothing tests.