The military has often created new technology that trickles down to everyday products, and now researchers at the U.S. Naval Academy may have paved the wave towards making a more robust helmet. However, this isn’t a military helmet, although there is no reason why their research couldn’t help soldiers on the battlefield, but rather a football helmet.
Physicist Murrary Korman and student Duncan Miller reportedly developed a simple experimental model to study helmet-to-helmet collisions – the types that happen regularly during a football game. The pair were able to get a pair of helmets from the football program and then created a ring of plastic that was just a 16th of an inch and six inches in diameter (about the size of an average skull) to place inside.
Upon impact the ring vibrated, and behaved much like a bell. This in turn allowed Korman and Miller to study how the brain reacted when the helmets hit one another. This could now lead to improvements in helmet design. We’ll be sure to watch where this goes next!
[Via Wired: Navy Research May Help Build a Better Football Helmet]