Non peer review stream Phillips Proceedings of the 2015 Australasian Road Safety Conference 14 - 16 October, Gold Coast, Australia Impact abrasion resistance quantification of protective motorcycle gloves Patrick Phillips a , Furquan Sharjeel b , Kyle Hickling a and Christopher J. Hurren a a Australian Future Fibres Research and Innovation Centre, Institute for Frontier Materials, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia 3216 b School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia 3216 Abstract The hands are often the first contact point with the road surface in a motorcycle crash. Wearing well designed protective gloves has been proven to significantly reduce the occurrence and severity of injuries to the hand. The European Standard for motorcycle protective gloves requires testing of component materials separately and does not consider the impact of abrasive surfaces on seems. This work aimed to develop a new method of testing of fully constructed gloves as worn by a rider in impact abrasion situations. It used previously published fall mechanics to understand the areas that may undergo impact abrasion. It defines the important zones for abrasion resistance and details ideal impact/measurement geometry for measurement on a Cambridge type abrasion tester. It proposes a method for the impact abrasion resistance of the palm, knuckles, wrist, outer side of the little finger and the tops of fingers. This information may be used for the quantification of fully manufactured gloves for standard certification or use in a rating system. Introduction 30% of motorcycle crashes resulted in hand injuries to the rider (Otte & Middelhauve, 1987) and numerous studies around the world have found that in a motorcycle crash, riders who do not wear any form of hand protection are at severe risk of injury. Data analysed from 900 motorcycle crashes in the USA found that in all cases of hand injuries, 74% of them occurred in crashes where the rider was not wearing any form of hand protection (Hurt, Ouellet, & Thom, 1981). A more recent study analysing 226 patients admitted to a hospital in Turkey over the course of a year found very similar results for hand injury statistics (Erdogan et al., 2013). Of riders wearing gloves, 44.7% suffered soft tissue abrasion injuries, while 80% of riders without gloves suffered soft tissue abrasion injuries. These studies highlight the need for riders to wear hand protection while riding, however in an Australian study of 212 motorcyclist involved in road crashes it was found that 25.7% of gloves designed for motorcycle use had suffered material failure during the crash (de Rome, Ivers, Fitzharris, Du, et al., 2011; de Rome, Ivers, Fitzharris, Haworth, et al., 2011). The current European Standard EN13594:2002 (Standardisation, 2002b) does not evaluate the abrasion resistance of the manufactured glove but does address the abrasion resistance of materials used in the gloves individually. A new revision of the standard (currently in publication awaiting approval) has reduced this individual test requirement and will only assess the abrasion resistance of the palm alone. Motorcycle gloves may be designed with a specific purpose in mind, such as maximum abrasion resistance or maximum impact resistance however this design may come at the cost of suitability for use in day to day motorcycling. A thick, heavy glove will likely provide a high resistance to abrasion, however would also cause significant discomfort during use on a hot day, and is especially unsuited to the high temperature regions of Australia. When setting the standardised levels of protection, a range of potential failure modes need to be considered and ranked, whilst ensuring the levels are set to an achievable goal whilst maintaining thickness and comfort levels.