Nowadays the application of composites in various industries is growing due to their unique properties. Investigating the behavior of composites under impact loading is a concerning issue. In designing and manufacturing body protecting systems, especially for head, the impact resistance of the part is of great importance. To reduce the weight of body protecting systems, composite parts are suggested. In this study, the energy absorption of safety helmet made of composite under impact loading is investigated. The outer shell of the safety helmet must absorb the most energy of the applied impact. At first, the energy absorption of four types of composite with various reinforcement preforms including nonwoven mat , biaxial single bed weft knitted fabric, biaxial double bed weft knitted fabric and woven mat was investigated and compared. In this respect, a composite plate with these mentioned preformed was fabricated through vacuum bag process. Based on the Charpy impact test results, the composite plate with the highest energy absorption was chosen as a material to fabricate the safety helmet. Then, the optimum thickness was obtained from performing the finite element modelling of drop-weight impact on safety helmets made of ABS. In order to validate the proposed finite element modelling, composite safety helmets were fabricated. Then, the drop-weight impact test was carried out on both safety helmets, made of ABS and fiberglass composite. The comparison of experimental and finite element modelling results showed the good agreement within the results. Keywords: Nonwoven mat, Biaxial single bed weft knitted fabric, Biaxial double bed weft knitted fabric, Woven mat, Charpy impact test, Helmets Shell, Drop-weight impact test
