The ideal way to reduce the likelihood of traumatic brain injuries for a player engaged in an impact sport such as football or hockey, as a result of an impact of his/her helmet with a surface or another player, would be to reduce the average value of the acceleration of the player's head in an impact as much as possible. The minimum possible value of the average deceleration of the head is inversely proportional to the helmet padding thickness. Since there are practical limits to its maximum thickness, it is difficult to significantly reduce the average acceleration. There is evidence, however, that the peak, rather than the average, acceleration is the most significant cause of brain injury. It is proposed here that brain injuries, that occur as a result of an impact, could be reduced by using as padding a hydrophilic porous material swollen with fluid. The friction experienced by the fluid as it is squeezed out of the porous material in an impact can “tune” the acceleration of the skull so that it is never significantly higher than its average value during the impact.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
28 September 2022
Research Article|
September 22 2022
Hydrophilic porous materials as helmet padding able to prevent traumatic brain injuries
J. B. Sokoloff
J. B. Sokoloff
a)
(Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing)
Physics Department, Northeastern University
, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
Search for other works by this author on:
a)Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: [email protected]
J. Appl. Phys. 132, 125102 (2022)
Article history
Received:
July 25 2022
Accepted:
August 31 2022
Citation
J. B. Sokoloff; Hydrophilic porous materials as helmet padding able to prevent traumatic brain injuries. J. Appl. Phys. 28 September 2022; 132 (12): 125102. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0114107
Download citation file:
Pay-Per-View Access
$40.00
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Citing articles via
A step-by-step guide to perform x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
Grzegorz Greczynski, Lars Hultman
Scaling effects on the microstructure and thermomechanical response of through silicon vias (TSVs)
Shuhang Lyu, Thomas Beechem, et al.
Related Content
Skull flexure from blast waves: A mechanism for brain injury with implications for helmet design.
J Acoust Soc Am (April 2009)
Versatile gas gun target assembly for studying blast wave mitigation in materials
AIP Conference Proceedings (March 2012)
Motorcycle helmet evaluation by Kansei engineering methodology
AIP Conf. Proc. (June 2023)
Design and manufacturing of stereotactic frame for biomechanical investigations
AIP Conf. Proc. (October 2024)