From Foam to Future: Advancing Football Helmet Technology for Impact Reduction

Abstract

While American football is a very popular sport in the United States and around the world, there are many concerns regarding the number of head injuries that players sustain and the long term health effects. This thesis aims to investigate the potential benefits of having soft foams atop players’ helmets to mitigate the impacts sustained during helmet to helmet collisions. This project consists of the design and creation of an apparatus capable of simulating such collisions, capturing data metrics such as the system’s kinetic energy and the accelerations caused by an impact, and analysis to determine whether this type of protective measure is effective. The findings suggest that such foams do help soften hits to a hard helmet, and this project lays the groundwork to determine if this solution is still viable for collisions involving greater velocities and masses. The findings also suggest that a foam’s ability to absorb energy and dampen accelerations caused by an impact are correlated.