Developing elastomeric cellular structures for multiple head impacts

Soe, Shwe

Abstract

Foam?based materials were originally incorporated into helmets in the 1970?s, providing an effective method of absorbing impact energy and so protecting against severe head injury. Similar materials still exist in the majority of protective helmets today, indicating a need for an innovative approach that will achieve a step? change in energy absorption performance. This paper focusses on tailoring the Miura?Ori (MO), origami?derived geometry, as a method to achieve a material structure tailored to maximise impact energy absorption, whilst complying with existing product design constraints. This ambitious concept was then realised using an elastomeric, additive manufacturing powder, before being tested against foam derived from a commercially? available American football helmet. MO pads demonstrated comparable performance versus foam at relatively low impact velocities, though recorded a peak acceleration 15\% less than foam at the highest impact velocity. This difference increased once the respective samples were exposed to their third impact, demonstrating the superior performance of MO over multiple impacts. The MO material demonstrated encouraging energy impact absorbing behaviour, with scope remaining to further optimise the geometry in order to further enhance performance. Furthermore, opportunities exist for achieving superior shear?energy performance than contemporary materials and, ultimately, for harnessing the benefits of additive manufacturing to fabricate person?specific headwear optimised for a given impact environment.

Citation

Robinson, M., Soe, S., McShane, G., Celeghini, R., Burek, R., Alves, M., & Theobald, P. (2017). Developing elastomeric cellular structures for multiple head impacts. In 2017 IRCOBI Conference Proceedings

• Conference Name: 2017 IRCOBI Conference
• Conference Location: Antwerp, Belgium
• Start Date: Sep 13, 2017
• End Date: Sep 15, 2017
• Acceptance Date: Sep 13, 2017
• Publication Date: 2017
• Deposit Date: Aug 22, 2019
• Book Title: 2017 IRCOBI Conference Proceedings
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/2368199
• Publisher URL: http://www.ircobi.org/wordpress/downloads/irc17/pdf-files/31.pdf
• Related Public URLs: http://orca.cf.ac.uk/115246/