Centurion Safety Products Ltd.

Safety helmets and hard hats have been protecting people in one form or another for thousands of years. From their humble beginnings as battle armour in 2500BC to today where their use is much more widespread, they have stood the test of time. These common safety items offer far more than you realise in terms of protection, and Centurion Safety Products would like to provide you with guidance on what that means in terms of the modern safety helmet and why we as leaders in above the neck protection we do what we do.

Series 1: Let’s talk plastic

HDPE or ABS or PP which is best? …..

HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) This is the most common plastic used to make hard hats/safety helmets, versatile with good chemical and impact resistance.

PP (Polypropylene) This is the second most commonly used plastic in the world and has good chemical and impact resistance also a high melting point.

ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) is a thermoplastic with good impact resistance and compression qualities. It also has good chemical resistance.

So, what does Centurion Safety Products think?

We currently use HDPE and ABS although our preferred thermoplastic is ABS. Why do you prefer this I hear you ask? Our ABS helmets are extruded in a thinner layer making them lightweight and ideal for wearing 8 hours a day. They also have fantastic impact and compression qualities due to the fact we only use a virgin grade giving you great tensile strength, fabulous compression strength and a hard material. This can be proved by the Izod and MPa tests. An Izod test is a pivoting arm raised to a specific height (constant potential energy) and then released whilst MPa is a pressure test. Through study we have found that the most consistent across both these aspects is our virgin grade ABS giving the wearer peace of mind. Centurion ABS helmets regularly hit 50% above the set target for compression and penetration tests performed in EN 397 making them one of the safest helmets in industry.

Our next series will cover hard hat/safety helmet compatibility.