HELMET ATTACHMENT SYSTEM

Technical Field

The present disclosure relates to devices for temporary attachment of safety helmets to other objects.

Background Art

Safety helmets are worn by many workers, recreationists, service members, and emergency responders. Many safety helmet users choose to wear a helmet only during activities that pose immediate risk, opting to attach the helmet to some structure or carry the helmet in or on a backpack or duffle at other times. Few backpacks provide a secure, convenient means for attaching a helmet. A helmet that is loosely attached to a backpack while a user is moving thorough rough terrain may be snagged at some inopportune moment or lost altogether.

Affixing a helmet securely often requires a complicated and awkward arrangement of straps and buckles that may discourage a user from detaching and donning a helmet when necessary. The nuisance of repeatedly attaching and removing a helmet to and from a pack may cause a user to forgo the use of the helmet when it is needed, exposing the user to the risk of severe injury. What is needed is a secure attachment method that allows for quick, easy, and repeated removal and attachment of a helmet from and to a backpack.

Disclosure of Invention

In accordance with the present disclosure, I provide a system for temporarily securing a helmet to an anchoring object by passing a sheet-shaped retainer that is tethered to the anchoring object through a hole in the helmet, orienting the retainer to be parallel to the surface of the helmet, and allowing tension within the tether to hold the retainer against the surface of the helmet.

In some embodiments the retainer may be elliptical and curved to conform to the surface of the helmet. In some embodiments the retainer may have a stiff first layer and a second layer having a high coefficient of friction. In some embodiments the retainer may have one of more finger loops to provide a user with a secure grip on the retainer. In some embodiments an elliptical retainer may have elongated openings proximate to the long sides of the ellipse and be made of flexible material that allows the long sides to be deformed under manual pressure, allowing the retainer to pass through holes that would otherwise be too small to accept the retainer. In some embodiments the retainer may be a Cassini oval. In some embodiments the tether may be an elastic cord that may be tightened with a cord lock.

All of these features and advantages of the present invention, and more, are illustrated below in the drawings and detailed description that follows.

Brief Description of Drawings

Fig. 1 shows a perspective view of a backpack with a safety helmet attachment retainer.

Fig. 2 shows a top plan view of an embodiment of a safety helmet retainer.

Fig. 3 shows a side elevation view of the retainer of Fig. 2.

Fig. 4 shows a perspective view of the lower layer of the retainer of Fig. 2.

Fig. 5 shows a perspective view of a backpack with the retainer of Fig. 2 on a loosened tether.

Fig. 6 shows a perspective view of a helmet placed against a backpack with a retainer being withdrawn from within the interior of the helmet.

Fig. 7 shows a perspective view of a backpack to which a helmet is secured by a retainer.

Fig. 8 shows a perspective view of a retainer secured against the surface of a helmet.

Fig. 9 shows a top plan view of a retainer in the shape of a Cassini oval.

Fig. 10 shows a top plan view of an elliptical retainer.

Fig. 11 shows a perspective view of the retainer of Fig. 2 being drawn through a ventilation hole in a helmet.

Fig. 12 shows a perspective view of a retainer with deformable sides being drawn through a ventilation hole in a helmet. Modes for Carrying Out the Invention

Fig. 1 shows a perspective view of a backpack 106 with a helmet attachment apparatus. A retainer 100 has a tether 102 looped through two retainer holes 104. The tether 102 draws the retainer 100 toward the body of the backpack 106 when the tether 102 is under tension. In the embodiment of Fig. 1 the tether 102 is an elastic cord that passes through a cord sleeve 108 to emerge at a lower point on the body of the backpack 106 where a cord locking device 110 allows a user to control the tension on the cord. In other embodiments the cord sleeve 108 and cord locking device 110 may be omitted altogether.

Fig. 2 shows a top plan view of an embodiment of the retainer 100. In this embodiment the retainer 100 is roughly elliptical with a finger loop 204 at each narrow end 200. Each finger loop 204 may be partially surrounded by slightly raised nubs 206. An elongated opening 202 within each long side 208 of the retainer 100 lightens the retainer 100 and may allow some flexibility in each long side 208.

The side elevation view of Fig. 3 reveals that the retainer 100 of Fig. 2 is a thin, curved sheet that may comprise at least two materials laminated together. The tether 102 may pass through grommets 304 that reinforce the points at which the tether 102 passes through the backpack's fabric. The upper layer 300 of the retainer 100 may consist of high-density polyethylene or another known material that is stiff and weather-resistant. The lower layer 302 may consist of synthetic rubber or another known material that has a high coefficient of friction with respect to the surface of a helmet and is soft enough to avoid marring the helmet. The two layers may be glued, thermally bonded, or otherwise laminated using known methods. Alternate embodiments may consist of only the upper layer 300, without a lower layer.

Fig. 4 shows a perspective view of the lower layer 302 of the retainer 100 embodiment of Fig. 2. Raised dots 400 may be formed into the lower layer 302 to increase friction against the surface of a helmet.

The retainer 100 may be easily employed by first loosening the cord locking device 110 and drawing the retainer 100 away from the body of the backpack 106 in the manner shown in Fig. 5. In embodiments where the cord locking device is omitted, the tether 102 may simply be embedded in a sleeve and/or attached directly to the pack body.

A helmet 600 is then placed against the backpack 106 with the interior of the helmet 600 facing the backpack 106, in the manner shown in Fig. 6. The retainer 100 is manually inserted into a ventilation hole 602 from within the interior of the helmet 600. The inserted retainer 100 is oriented with its major axis approximately parallel to the tether 102 and approximately perpendicular to the plane of a ventilation hole 602 so that the retainer 100 may be easily drawn from within the interior of the helmet 600 through the ventilation hole 602. Fig. 11 shows an enlarged view of the retainer 100 of Fig. 2 being drawn through a ventilation hole 602. The finger loop 204 greatly improves the user's grip on the retainer 100, allowing the user to more easily manipulate the retainer 100 with cold fingers and in environmental conditions in which manual dexterity and strength are compromised. Alternatively, the nubs 206 also improve the user's grip on the retainer 100.

Once the retainer 100 has been drawn completely through the ventilation hole 602 the retainer 100 is reoriented so that the major and minor axes of the retainer 100 are perpendicular to the tether 102 and parallel to the surface of the helmet 600 in the manner shown in Figs. 7 and 8. The curve along the thin dimension of the retainer 100 allows the retainer 100 to conform closely to the exterior of the helmet 600, thereby distributing retainer pressure over more helmet surface area, increasing friction between the retainer 100 and the helmet 600, and presenting a smaller retainer edge profile to tree branches and other environmental obstacles that might snag and dislodge the retainer 100.

As shown in Fig. 7, the tether 102 may then be tensioned by drawing excess cord through the cord locking device 110 until the tether 102 is sufficiently stretched to hold the retainer 100 tightly against the helmet 600, thereby holding the helmet 600 tightly against the backpack 106. As shown in Fig. 8, the central locations of the retainer holes 104 cause tension on the tether 102 to apply an inward force on the retainer 100 that is centered and equidistant from the edges of the retainer 100, causing the retainer 100 to resist returning to the perpendicular insertion orientation and to instead remain parallel to the surface of the helmet 600. Embodiments without cord locking devices may rely entirely on the elasticity of the tether 102 to hold the helmet 600 against the backpack 106.

Whether curved, laminated or not, the sheet form of all retainer embodiments combined with central tether attachment creates a system in which a retainer tensioned against a helmet is in the most stable state when the broadest surface of the retainer sheet contacts and is parallel to the helmet surface.

The simple procedure described above can be repeatedly used and reversed to quickly and easily attach and detach a helmet to and from an anchoring object such as a backpack, or any of a variety of other anchoring objects including but not limited to luggage, vehicles, walls, and posts.

Holes in helmets may vary considerably in size, shape, and placement. A useful retainer must be small enough to be easily drawn through a helmet hole by a user but large enough to substantially cover the hole when oriented parallel to the helmet surface, making the retainer highly resistant to unintentional reorientation. The dog-bone-shaped Cassini oval retainer 900 shown in Fig. 9 achieves this combination of characteristics because the lobe 902 at each end is too large to pull through a helmet ventilation hole 602 when the retainer 900 is held flat under tension against the exterior of the helmet 600, while the narrower central waist 904 allows the retainer 900 to be more easily worked through the ventilation hole 602 than a rectangular or elliptical shape of similar overall dimensions.

A retainer may assume many other shapes. Fig. 10 shows an elliptical retainer 1000 embodiment without finger loops or other openings. Portions of the high-friction lower layer 1004 encase the edges of the rigid upper layer 1002, improving the user's grip while the retainer 1000 is drawn through a ventilation hole and protecting the helmet from damage by the harder upper layer 1000 material.

Another embodiment that may adapt to a wide range of ventilation hole sizes and shapes is shown in Fig. 12. The embodiment of Fig. 12 is shaped as the embodiment of Fig. 2 and has an upper layer made of sufficiently flexible material that the long sides 1208 may be deformed under finger pressure toward the center of the retainer 1200, temporarily decreasing the width the retainer 1200 to allow insertion through ventilation holes that would otherwise be too small to accept the retainer 1200. Fig. 12 shows such an embodiment being drawn through a ventilation hole 602 while the long sides 1208 are manually compressed.

The principles, embodiments, and modes of operation of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing specification. The embodiments disclosed herein should be interpreted as illustrating the present invention and not as restricting it. The foregoing disclosure is not intended to limit the range of equivalent structure available to a person of ordinary skill in the art in any way, but rather to expand the range of equivalent structures in ways not previously contemplated. For example, although the disclosure above describes attachment of a safety helmet to a backpack, embodiments of the invention may be used with equal effectiveness to attach safety helmets to duffels, luggage, vehicles, walls, and an enormous variety of other objects and structures. Numerous variations and changes can be made to the foregoing illustrative embodiments without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.

Industrial Applicability

From the foregoing it can be seen that the teachings of this disclosure have applicability in the manufacture and use of devices for attaching safety helmets to other objects, particularly backpacks. The helmet attachment device embodiments taught by this disclosure may increase the convenience and security of safety helmet attachment.