Communications of the ACM
Digital Design, QB Investments Could Aid Football Helmets
The makers of football helmets such are refining their designs to incorporate enhanced safety features.
Credit: Riddell
Major football helmet manufacturers such as Riddell are funding and refining new, digitally designed models with enhanced safety features.
New Riddell football helmets designed in collaboration with three-dimensional (3D) printing tech company Carbon feature a 3D-printed liner contoured precisely to the wearer's head. This liner is comprised of 140,000 individual struts that absorb forces from linear and rotational impacts. R
iddell uses a database of more than 5 million impacts to tailor the tuning of the struts to adjust helmet structures.
Such helmets will be tested this year by the National Football League.
Riddell’s Thad Ide said, “I could see in the next two to three years having these (for specific positions), with instrumentation in them. It will be difficult to make a helmet that will not have this technology. It is very much a leap forward in technology.”
From Associated Press
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