9Lives

Protection From Head Trauma

The 9Lives helmet was developed as an alternative to traditional expanded foam based impact protection systems. The fine powder based pods dissipate low velocity as well as high velocity impacts without losing efficacy from successive hits.

By embodying it as a liner system, ventilation, weight & protection can be easily controlled for various helmet applications such as cycling, skateboarding, rock climbing, American football etc.

We determined the ideal “sandwich” by exploring impact pod materials, foams and infills.

I prototyped pods out of RTV silicone and PU elastomers with varying shore hardness. I then determined a process to easily fill and seal the pods with a variety of powders.

We built our own accelerometer based impact hammer and measured the deceleration for infill powders such as Sand, PMMA, Pellets and Glass beads.

The next stage was to integrate the “sandwich” into a helmet padding system. I began by stripping out all the hard foam within the helmet until just the shell remained.

I developed a 2D pattern based liner system which allowed me to easily adjust the position and number of pods within the helmet.

Using laser cutting techniques I was able to translate our “sandwich” consisting of foam, pods and liner into a set of parts to fit our helmet Using a combination of Velcro and glue for assembly.