May / June, 2004
2004 Biosystems Engineering Design Projects
Athletic Armor
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Left to right: W. Reid Shepard, Timothy Long, Andrew Bender and Tolam Nguyen "wear"their design project - Athletic Armor |
The current football helmets provide protection for normal impact forces; they are not designed to attenuate tangential components of oblique impact forces, which often cause concussions. The goal of this project was to redesign the helmet so that it can absorb the tangential component of an oblique impact, while maintaining the current helmet's hardshell design and incurring minimal cost.
The team designed a viscoelastic layer between the outer polycarbonate shell, and the interior foam padding. They measured performance using both standard industry testing equipment and equipment custom-designed by the students. The addition of a viscoelastic layer within the helmet padding proved to attenuate oblique impacts better than the current design, which may lead to reduced concussions in the game of football.
Team presenting their Athletic Armor helmet during showcase |
Advisors: Dr. Tom Mase
Dr. G. Jayaraman, MTU
Industry Support: Mr. Thad Ide, Riddell, Inc.
Mr. Nelson Kraemer, Riddell, Inc.
Mr. Brian Gant, Riddell, Inc.
Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering
Michigan State University
A.W. Farrall Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824-1323
(517) 355-4720
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June 3, 2004
