Mitigating Head Injuries
with Biomimicry

Motorcycle helmets are vital to protect from recurrent road accidents as they prove crucial in reducing brain trauma. This research piece presents a new and plausible bio-inspired design affined to the foam liner material and structure in helmets. The proposed liner design is inspired from animal horn micro-structure and tubule arrangement. An innovative drop-testing apparatus is presented with a spring-ratchet mechanism for experimental testing. The aim is to validate the new design by meeting the ECE 22.05 standard for motorbike helmets using peak linear acceleration and HIC criteria. Experimental results are partly verified against FEA simulations for two proposed samples. Further samples call for more complex simulations at a later stage to best describe material properties and structures.