When you show off a new helmet it’s usually the graphics and the trick gadgets that get the most attention, but let’s not forget about a helmet’s primary function: keeping your head safe.

Most helmets have the same basic construction : a rigid outer shell, a foam liner that is designed to absorb and distribute the energy from an impact, and inner padding to keep your head comfortable and snug. The concept may sound simple, but everyone has a different approach to it, and the hunt for a better helmet never ends.

Arai’s research has led them to a proprietary fiberglass shell. The material is good enough for the folks at NASA to use, and Arai says they like it because it’s strong but light, and it flexes instead of shatters.

Ed Becker, the Executive Director of the Snell Memorial Foundation, has another take. Although they are less concerned with how a helmet does its job -- so long

as it passes their rigorous testing -- Becker says that the new carbon fiber shells gaining popularity in Formula 1 may find their way to the motorcycle industry as their prices come down. The shells are actually cured in an autoclave, producing a harder shell. (Formula 1 technology is nothing new when it come to motorcycle helmets. Arai’s Venturi venting system originated there.)

Then there is ACSAS Technology Corporation, a company you probably haven’t heard of , but one that is doing revolutionary behind-the-scenes work to produce a better helmet. ACSAS has a relationship with a lot of major helmet companies, and their Managing Director, Kerry Harris, is also the man behind Akuma Helmets.

ACSAS has introduced a solution to impact resistance that got its start on the deck of aircraft carriers. Harris is a former Navy pilot who has had plenty of touchdowns on carriers. The system the Navy uses to catch and slow down jets is what inspired ACSAS’s namesake the Advanced Compensating Shock Absorbing System.

“ I was amazed at how simple the arresting gear system was (on an aircraft carrier). It’s basically a system of pulleys and hydraulics, and pressurized air.,” says Harris. It’s so simple how you can stop a multi-ton aircraft going over 150mph within a 150 feet. I said, “Couldn’t you apply that same technology to a helmet?”

As to how ACSAS works, Kerry explains that, “I put a system of bladders and a pressurized gas-filled chamber on the top. When that bladder absorbs an impact, the fluid squirts thought the tube and pressurizes the air in the system, thereby reducing the amount of impact you absorb into your cranium. When that impact is removed the pressure in the system forces the liquid back into the bladder.