NFL releases FE model for helmet development towards development of "safe helmet" that prevents American football's cerebral shadow

In American football where severe contacting action occurs during play, by repeatedly being exposed to collision and tackle,It is affected to change the brainIt has been reported that. It is an American professional leagueNFL99% of the former players in the brainI have a serious obstacleNevertheless, NFL who saw the situation seriously opened a "safe helmet" development kit for developers with the aim of improving the safety of the competition.

Finite Element Models: New Tools for Innovation in Football Helmet Design - NFL Play Smart, Play Safe
https://www.playsmartplaysafe.com/resource/finite-element-models/

NFL isFootball Research, Inc. (FRI)(About 6.6 billion yen) to the US $ 60 million,Engineering RoadmapWe started a project called 5 years. This project aims to improve the understanding of trauma to the head of NFL players, to collaborate with helmet manufacturers and other companies, entrepreneurs and universities to develop highly safe protective equipment.

Cooperating with the Engineering Roadmap project is not only for developers but also for biochemical engineering servicesBiocoreAlso included. Biocore will provide engineering services necessary for development and expertise in biomechanics, and will cooperate in exploring the mechanism of injury in football and the way to mitigate the effects of injury.

The Engineering Roadmap project cooperates with University of Virginia, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Royal Swedish Technical University, Waterloo University, etc. for open source helmet developmentFinite Element Method (FE)We have been developing models. The FE model is a computation tool developed by dividing an object into finite elements and modeling the entire structure. By making the structure an FE model, it is easy to analyze design changes efficiently. Already, the FE model is used in fields such as the aerospace industry and the automobile industry.


The utilization of the FE model in the football helmet has been released for injury prevention research and efficient protective helmet development at the time of article creation. Biocore utilized the knowledge of the latest brainstem mechanics to develop a model of technical specifications and experimental data on four contemporary football helmets. These data are said to be useful for predicting the impact of helmets and helmets in real-world collisions, collisions between the helmet and the ground, contact between the helmet and the shoulder of the player, and so on.

These calculation models are designed for helmet manufacturers, designers, entrepreneurs, universities, etc. onlineIt is open to the public. Universities and private enterprises with expertise and research capabilities on FE models can use the latest computational model updated by Biocore from time to time to tackle the development of helmets.

byJohann Schwarz

Developing an FE model for developing football helmets by providing external funds and using crowdsourcing techniques is just one of efforts to improve the safety of competition promoted by NFL. In 2017, he is the president of the NFL Engineering CommitteeJeff CoulandDr. has conducted a comprehensive video review by experts to investigate the case of causing a player a cerebral cortex in the competition.

Experts analyzed the videos of 459 scenes with cerebral cerebral percussion, confirmed in the NFL games in 2015 and 2016. And, depending on the attitude and angle at the time of collision, we examined the question of how much the seriousness of the brainstorm is affected.

Increasing data on injuries such as brain shields that occurred during the game will help you design a variety of protective gears including helmets. FRI is promoting efforts to protect players, including sharing data and improving the safety of helmets through the Engineering Roadmap project.

byTristan Seifert