Best Motorcycle Helmet Material: Polycarbonate vs Fiberglass vs Carbon Fiber
If you are new to motorcycle helmets, you might be wondering how to choose a motorcycle helmet. What material is the most reliable? Today we are going to give you a guide on motorcycle helmet materials.
It has always been a very contentious issue among motorcyclists as to which shell materials are optimal or desirable under certain conditions. The number of available crash tests on YouTube speaks for itself. We’ll talk about this, since it is the single most critical factor in a motorcycle helmet, but we also wanted to check whether there was a difference in comfort once we had all the data from our rides.
Safety
There is no doubt that safety is the most important factor to consider when shopping for motorcycle helmets. But which material offers the best protection for riders? Polycarbonate, fiberglass and carbon fiber are all popular choices, but which one is the safest?
| Helmet Shell | Avg SHARP safety score (Max 5) | Avg weight Lbs (Kg) |
|---|---|---|
| Carbon | 4.25 | 3.0 (1.36) |
| Composite | 3.76 | 3.2 (1.46) |
| Fiberglass | 3.6 | 3.3 (1.49) |
| Polycarb/thermoplastic | 3.3 | 3.46 (1.57) |
| Full Face | 3.6 | 3.24 (1.47) |
| Modular/flip | 3.35 | 3.75 (1.7) |
Polycarbonate helmets are made of a strong, lightweight plastic. They are designed to disperse the force of an impact and protect the rider’s head from serious injury. You can earn 4 rating from SHARP for a thermoplastic or polycarbonate motorcycle helmet like the Shark Evo-One 2 as you would for a helmet made of fiberglass or carbon fiber. The four-star rating is a high honor in this circumstance. This means that a Polycarbonate helmet can be safe for your daily riding as long as you choose the right one. Polycarbonate is a plastic that is made from carbon and is often used in bulletproof glass. This material is what makes polycarbonate motorcycle helmets so durable, but it also makes them heavier.
There are also other great Polycarbonate helmets like Nolan N87 Savoir Faire Helmet; HJC i90 Helmet
Fiberglass helmets are designed to disperse the force of an impact, but they are lighter than polycarbonate helmets. They are made of a composite material that is lightweight and strong. Fiberglass helmets are often used in racing because they offer good protection and are lighter than other types of helmets. When you choose a helmet made of fiberglass for your motorbike, you’re getting a more durable material that, along with composites, offers a little more give when it comes to absorbing impact.
Some of the great Fiberglass helmets are Schuberth C4 Pro Helmet; HJC F70
Read more about our top picks of best-performance Fiberglass helmets
The last one is the carbon fiber helmet. It is the one you often see in the top-range helmet market. It is made of carbon fiber, which is a material that is both strong and lightweight. Carbon fiber helmets are often used by racing drivers and motorcycle riders because they offer a high level of protection. Carbon fiber helmets are the strongest and lightest of the three materials. They are also the most expensive.
One of the most important attributes of carbon fiber is its safety rating. In terms of sharpness, carbon fiber has the best safety score of any material. This means that it is less likely to cause injury if it comes into contact with skin or other sensitive materials. Some of the top carbon fiber helmets are HJC RPHA 90S Carbon Helmet; AGV Pista GP RR Carbon Helmet
Read more about our top picks of best-performance carbon fiber helmets
The safest shell materials, according to SHARP, tend to follow the same order: carbon fiber, composite, fiberglass, polycarbonate. Since there is more to helmet safety than just a yes or no answer, you should do your research before purchasing one. Look for certifications from organizations like the European Conformity Evaluation System (ECE) and the United States Department of Transportation (DOT), and see what SNELL and SHARP have to say about it.
Keep in mind that there are varying degrees of excellence within each type of shell material. Lexan polycarbonate, which is used by Nolan in their helmets, will perform better than regular polycarbonate and so forth.
So, which material is the safest? All three materials offer good protection for riders, but carbon fiber helmets offer the best protection. They are strong, light and designed to disperse the force of an impact. If you are looking for the safest helmet, carbon fiber is the way to go.
Where do various shell materials stand in terms of on-road performance?
Concerns have been raised about the performance and noise reduction of the two shell materials when driving. We wanted to know, too, so we double-checked the data from our road test. Please keep in mind that all of our tests were performed on the same bike while traveling at a speed of around 130 km/h (or roughly 80 mph) on the highway.
The helmet’s ear was fitted with a decibel meter, the EPS liner’s grooves were probed with a thermometer, and the day’s wind velocity was determined using an anemometer attached to the bike. We compiled our findings from 49 testing of helmets from companies including AGV, Arai, Schuberth, Shoei, Nolan, X-Lite, Shark, Airoh, and Schuberth. We included Shoei and Arai in with our fiberglass category for convenience, but given that they employ a composite material, you may anticipate them to perform better than regular fiberglass.
The Performance of Shell Materials
When we put on our helmets and took a peek at each other, we were not overly startled. Overall, polycarbonate was the least preferred material due to its poor performance in the categories of lightness and quietness (3 and 2.5 ratings, respectively). It’s intriguing that both fiberglass and carbon fiber helmets scored 3 out of 5 for noise, with the only real variation coming in the form of a 0.5 star difference in weight. So, carbon fiber gets 4.5 stars while fiberglass gets 4 stars.
A lot of factors suggest that these findings shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. This is, first of all, due to the testing limitations of the helmets we used. Polycarbonate helmets are often less expensive than fiberglass or carbon fiber helmets because they cut corners in areas like weight and noise isolation. This is evident in the somewhat lower ratings we’ve given in categories like ventilation and comfort. Furthermore, when you reach the upper range of helmets, so much effort is put into making them quiet that you end up with roughly the same noise level.
Similar predictions hold true when considering weight. Neither polycarbonate nor fiberglass is as light as carbon fiber, and both are heavier than carbon fiber. Keep in mind that a lighter helmet may also cause you to experience more buffeting, but this will vary from model to model.
Final Verdicts of Helmets Made from Polycarbonate vs Fiberglass vs Carbon Fiber
To sum up, the reduced complexity of producing polycarbonate helmets allows for significant cost savings. Since it is less rigid, the material can spread the energy of a low-velocity impact over the shell, making it sturdy. Polycarbonate helmets are often lauded for their safety features and ability to protect riders from serious injury. This means that you may obtain a good diversity of designs.
Polycarbonate’s heavier weight is one of its drawbacks since more of the material is required. Due to the fact that this is the most common material for cheaper helmets, you may expect basic safety features. In addition, for obvious reasons, it will be a louder helmet.
The advantages of fiberglass include its light weight in comparison to polycarbonate but it’s heavier generally than carbon fiber, which allows it to absorb some impact but not as effectively as fiberglass would with polycarbonate. Because of the simpler production method, it will be substantially cheaper than carbon fiber. As an alternative to carbon fiber, fiberglass has a lower price tag, but it lacks carbon fiber’s lightweight and the latter’s superiority in spreading impact forces throughout a helmet shell. Therefore, a higher EPS is required to compensate. As a last note, they’ll be more expensive than a polycarbonate lid.
The key benefits of carbon fiber are its high lightweight, which is why it is commonly used in sports applications, its relatively low weight, and its performance in high-velocity collisions. The downside is that its increased stiffness makes it less resistant to damage from impacts. So, any collision will undoubtedly leave visible marks on the helmet. You should expect to pay a lot more for a helmet made of carbon fiber, and since the carbon fiber skin is so desirable, you may find that you have to settle with fewer graphics.
