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Building a Better Bike Helmet Out of Paper
An anonymous reader writes "Inspired by nature, a London man believes the solution to safer bike helmets is to build them out of paper. '"The animal that stood out was the woodpecker. It pecks at about ten times per second and every time it pecks it sustains the same amount of force as us crashing at 50 miles per hour," says Surabhi. "It's the only bird in the world where the skull and the beak are completely disjointed, and there's a soft corrugated cartilage in the middle that absorbs all the impact and stops it from getting a headache." In order to mimic the woodpecker's crumple zone, Anirudha turned to a cheap and easily accessible source — paper. He engineered it into a double-layer of honeycomb that could then be cut and constructed into a functioning helmet. "What you end up with is with tiny little airbags throughout the helmet," he says.'"
Dafuq you need a helmet for on a bicycle? That's like putting a screen door on a cow. When I was a kid the only kids that wore helmets were retards. We didn't have warning labels on everything either, back then.
C|N>K
are made from air and common sense.
I'd say it's the article at fault not the designer, but the reason polystyrene foam is already used in bike helmets is exactly the same - "tiny little airbags throughout the helmet".
I wonder how this compares? Does this absorb more energy?
Paper had one characteristic that might make it less than suitable for use in rain. One foam helmet might be cheaper in the long run than a bunch of soggy paper helmets.
The name is Hövding and it's an "Airbag bicycle helmet". It's developed by some team in Skåne, Sweden. Looks really cool.
It's also freaking expensive.
That looks pretty cool but what happens if you fall face first?
http://www.hovding.com/content/images/startpage/03_what_is_hovding/girl-helmet.jpg
"It is well documented our enterprise patented and manufactured paper made from bicycle helmets."_tm.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It's also freaking expensive.
So are car airbags, but you don't notice the expense because it's hidden in the $30,000 purchase price of the car.
One word says it all, "rain."
Same question is applied to traditional helmets. But I suppose you're talking about the time between helmet reacting and fully deployed airbag.
signature is pants
That looks pretty cool but what happens if you fall face first?
Looks like it still protects your forehead, even if your face ultimately hits the ground:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Oud3iGXWY
(The face down crash starts around 3:30 (there's a couple slow-motion replays after the full speed crash)
I think you have to read between the lines carefully to find the real value in the article. I think it can be equally valid to build a bicycle helmet from corrugated or expanded cardboard as is is with styrofoam + shell. (OK, styrofoam is a trademart for Expanded Polystyrene.) As others have commented, cardboard is suseptible to damage from moisture, so it has to be sealed against it. In addition, I'm not convinced that the cardboard design is cheaper to manufacture than the styrofoam designs.
To me, the relevant signal is the reduction in maximum G force. The article suggests that the design limit is 300G, and conventional helmets achieve 225G - while his design gets to 70G. Presumably, the mechanism for doing that is to absorb the impact energy over a significant period of time before transmitting the forces to the wearer. Given the velocity of the collision, this means that the helment has to be built with a greater distance between the outside and inside of the helment than existing designs. If people are willing to wear thicker helmets (appropriately designed), such helmets could be reasonably expected to perform better - I'd think comparable designs could be easily built from the styrofoam + shell technology that's commonly in use.
Finally, the inventor says he was inspired by observing that his helmet was broken in the collision. THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE MEANT TO DO. In absorbing the forces of the collision, the helmet is permanently deformed. If your head is saved from destruction by a helment - buy a new helment to replace it.
That's the purpose of the extension of the helmet forward over the forehead.
The article says the paper helmet results in lower G force (i.e. the head decelerates slower) compared to a polystyrene helmet in a 15mph crash. In other words the paper helmet isn't as stiff and acts like a soft cushion. That's great for low speed and low energy crashes, but what about high speed crashes where you need a stiff material that can absorb the energy?
Plenty of cyclists (myself included) could double that speed on the flat, and easily do 50mph down a hill.
Snowcrash as fuck. I want one.
Looks really cool.
I never thought "really cool" would translate to "fucking hilarious".
Well done.
The name is Hövding and it's an "Airbag bicycle helmet". It's developed by some team in Skåne, Sweden. Looks really cool.
You and I have very different ideas of what looks cool.
It's also freaking expensive.
So are car airbags, but you don't notice the expense because it's hidden in the $30,000 purchase price of the car.
So... we should increase the price of bicycles?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
After RTFA, it seems that the most obvious material to make the helmet from is woodpecker skulls. Didn't anyone else get that?
Corrugated cardboard has been used for decades under high-altitude scientific balloon payloads to absorb the impact of landing from a parachute descent. You don't have to put too many of them under several thousand pounds of experiment and gondola. Here is a (not so good) picture of one example. The cardboard provides a very nice low-gee impact.
why not just ban bikes from the roads, since cyclists can still suffer broken legs and arms if they are run over by motor vehicles.
Surabhi's design has been around for a few years now, and has been recently been integrated into an actual product: the Abus Kranium AKS 1. While it appears to perform splendidly for impacts directly to the top of the head, impacts to the side or rear (which are significantly more common) are quite average. You can see some raw test data from prototypes at http://www.helmets.org/kraniumresearch.pdf
Its good to see some innovation going on in the helmet space. Alternative materials like this, dual-density "conehead" liners, and MIPS tech are all interesting ideas for reducing injury. Now if only consumers could get more information about a particular helmet's crash performance beyond the basic CPSC "prevents your head from cracking open" certification. I'd love to be able to compare based on the peak acceleration or dwell time data that is already measured!
That looks pretty cool but what happens if you fall face first?
http://www.hovding.com/content/images/startpage/03_what_is_hovding/girl-helmet.jpg
Looking at the videos, I don't see why they don't airbag the whole head. What do you need to see when you're crashing? And even if you do need to see, why not extend nose and cheek pieces all the way around? Or just make a section of the airbag with clear plastic instead of white.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
It's also freaking expensive.
So are car airbags, but you don't notice the expense because it's hidden in the $30,000 purchase price of the car.
So... we should increase the price of bicycles?
Either that, or those that want an airbag for their heads can use the money they saved by buying a $1,000 bike instead of a $30,000 car and use it to buy a $700 biking airbag.
I'm all for a better designed bicycle helmet, and I'd use it in some circumstances. But I'm vehemently against the government mandating that I must wear one.
Provided the bra is full and in use, I'm fine with that.
Why not extend the cheek guards as well (think Kenny from South Park)? Or why bother with an open face area at all?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
A crumple zone for your melon makes perfect sense.
A number of high-end kid car seats use crushable aluminum "crumple zones" to reduce the forces felt by the occupant in a crash.
"G" is not a measure of force OR energy but instead translated into units of acceleration. It helps to answer a question with something related before criticising the person asking it.
The important thing in this case is the energy absorbed - which can be derived from the relationship between force and displacement and not just one of those. So it's related to the area under the force versus displacement curve (or directly found from the area under the stress strain curve). Or you could just hit it with a big hammer and see how far it bounces back then convert that to joules. Both work.
The opposite is most definitely the case. The dramatic increase of course should not be taken as having anything at all to do with helmet laws, unlike your silly strawman lie that people are expected to believe if they are far away.
Try going to war, now or 2000 years ago, without a helmet. It's better to have one, even if it's made of paper or similar. Same goes for protecting other body parts such as the torso or legs. Even cloth or leather armor will help you. The difference between wearing cotton jeans, leather pants, or no pants at all will become readily apparent as you slide across asphalt. Fuck the studies, just think about the physics for a moment. Failing that, use your imagination.
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
Where did I write that it was wrong to do that?
I know it's fashionable to build and burn strawmen here and you are doing only a very mild version of that but it's still dishonest.
Why not extend the cheek guards as well (think Kenny from South Park)? Or why bother with an open face area at all?
Because preventing you from seeing in an accident is bad? If you're flying over the handle bar, you can lessen the impact better if you see where exactly to put your hands in front of you.
This is already for sale as the Abus Kranium It is a rather expensive helmet, as it costs about E100 while a normal EPS helmet costs E50. However it is also a lot better, so when you bike a bit faster than 24 km/h (15 mph) it is still useful.
Over time the helmets will get cheaper if everyone buys them (economies of scale) and they are proven better.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
I wonder how many paper bicycle helmets you can buy for the price of a 400 Euro airbag helmet?
http://www.fahrrad.de/hoevding-airbag-helm-ueberzug-raven-obscure-348334.html
And this is why I always wear a donkey piñata over my head when I ride my bicycle.
Yeah it looks so cool it is almost impossible to distinguish it from looking shit.
Are bicycle helmets tested to Snell specs? I suspect not, even though Snell seems to be what they ought to be using.
While we're on the subject of design, why not eliminate race design from street bikes? The "flat back" approach might matter to a racer looking to reduce air resistance to an absolute minimum, but for a typical cyclist the upright position has comfort and safety going for it, at the cost of a slight increase in effort. The race inspired position means you lead with your head, not too smart on the road.
I'm a motorcyclist, not a bicyclist (currently). For years non-motorcyclists enforced a law on us requiring the use of a helmet. This is not simply a safety issue and shouldn't even get to an argument of 'for' or 'against', it's a freedom of choice issue. As an adult you have the right to choose, or you should have. As a caveat, I'm not totally against helmet use or the safety they bring and I wear a helmet on my motorcycle probably at least 60-80% of them time depending. I have friends whose lives were saved wearing a helmet and I have friends that died from the use of one through rotational torque to his neck and spine. The issue at hand is not about the relative safety or danger of helmet use; it should be about CHOICE.
Choice is a freedom, and once lost I can attest to how difficult it is to regain. Allow people to make their own INFORMED choices, do not legislate it. Regardless on which side of this issue you come down on we should all be able to agree that forcing 'good behavior' on a full grown adult is wrong.
If I sound stupid, it's not me talking....
Like all things well engineered or not, they are likely to go off when you don't need them too. Like riding over rails in traffic. A malfunction shouldn't blind you.
The front of your face has more bits to break off by rapid deployment of an airbag (those things aren't gentle and squishy --- they've got to move fast, and absorb a lot of force). Also, it's probably a reinforced, woven synthetic material, not a white plastic sheet --- you can't make flexible, strong see-through materials. And you probably don't want an airbag popping in front of your eyes in many crash situations, where you'll need to increase your chances of survival by, e.g., rolling out of traffic instead of into it.
Unfortunately their size range is rather limited.
You cushion the landing with your arms.
Because people like breathing?
Looking at the videos, I don't see why they don't airbag the whole head.
Because certain death from suffocation is worse than potential death from head trauma.
Can anyone focus on the darned subject?
No thanks. "Looks really cool" is purely a matter of opinion. To me, it looks hotter than a fuck.
While exerting yourself, I would think that you would want to keep the blood entering your brain cool, rather than heating it up.
It's not small. No, no, no.
Why would anyone need to make such a specious argument to justify not wanting a compulsory governor on her car? The simplest argument is, "It's my car, and I choose to be the device that limits its speed." You see, a car is a privately owned possession that has use on public roads, but its use is not limited to public roads.
Until it got wet from biking in the rain.
Because people like breathing?
You mean all those people in full face motorcycle helmets are suffocating to death?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Suffocation? How? These things aren't air-tight, and they only remain inflated for a few seconds. Besides, if you read further, I was suggesting having the nose and cheek areas protected. ie, something more like this, but scaled for a person's head. The way it's designed now, it looks like post inflation esthetics played more of a role than preventing head trauma.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
It's notable that all their crash test videos only use a stationary bike falling over of being rear-ended. Such a system would be useless against real world situations where your head could be sliding across the ground at 20+ MPH.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
It is really cool, but oh man I'd hate to see what happens if it triggers while 'misaligned'.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
He definitely had me on board when he mentioned "blancmange "
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/invisible-bicycle-helmet-airbag-head-2D11599972
I would love to see this helmet here become DOT certified.
So vehement, readers should note, that he lied about decreasing rates of cycling in Australia after helmet laws were imposed when instead the reality is a cycling boom.
He also did not have the courage to admit it when I pointed that out in a reply to one of his other posts.