Making bicycle helmets cool to wear – Information Centre – Research & Innovation

By Marta Boettcher 6 years ago

Getting individuals to dress in bicycle helmets can be tricky. Many cyclists complain that helmets are just much too sizzling. But EU-funded scientists are now earning the headgear a whole lot cooler, generating an excess incentive to dress in it while boosting safety.


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Offered an possibility in between safety and convenience, some customers are probably to pick convenience. The very same is accurate when it arrives to bicycle helmets, which are likely to come to feel much too warm just after long or intense rides. The form and non-optimised vents in the helmet as effectively as the insulated liners typically end up trapping significantly much too significantly warmth.

Men and women commuting to perform on a bike, for instance, do not want a sweaty head and tussled hair for the reason that of carrying a helmet. Without compromising safety, scientists had been challenged to make the helmets a whole lot cooler to dress in. The predicament was tackled by the EU-funded SMARTHELMET venture which brought together research and business industry experts to appear up with a novel alternative.

‘SMARTHELMET venture centered on developing helmets with active thermal management, wherever the ventilation can be managed autonomously relying on a rider’s cooling requires,’ states venture coordinator Tiago Sotto Mayor of the University of Porto in Portugal.

By designing and generating new helmets that are cooler and much more comfy, the hope is that a lot of much more will start off carrying them. Extra bikers indicate a much more active population and quite possibly cleaner air for people who pick no longer to commute by motor vehicle. Also, engineering that could help save lives is not only smart but is also socially dependable.

‘Moreover, helmets are passive objects with a fastened geometry and form which simply cannot adapt to riders’ diverse thermal environments and ventilation requires,’ states Sotto Mayor.

Cooler heads prevail

Regular helmets serve only to shield a person’s head. So earning 1 that can also sense, predict and adapt its ventilation to the cooling requires of a rider calls for a whole lot of experience.

For SMARTHELMET, this meant very first bringing together a combine of industry experts in biomechanics, electronics, thermo-regulation, engineering, producing and innovation.

SMARTHELMET scientists then built-in electronics into bicycle helmets to empower true-time sensing of physiological and environmental parameters. These parameters bundled coronary heart rate, temperature and relative humidity, which had been applied to gauge a rider’s warmth output and varying cooling requires.

‘We investigated methods to adapt the helmet ventilation by using changes in the characteristics of its vents and joined their operation with the rider’s thermo-regulation requires,’ states Sotto Mayor.

The results had been then built-in into an progressive helmet concept to optimise ventilation by using sensing, electronics and smart operation. The concept also took in other aspects like surrounding environmental disorders and the cyclist’s degree of bodily exercise.

Outside of biking

LAZER, a company that patterns and sells bicycle helmets in much more than 65 nations unfold around five continents, was also concerned in the venture. Sotto Mayor describes the agency as a pure associate to flip the research into progressive smart bicycle helmets.

On the other hand, he also notes that the research has a enormous possible in other sectors as effectively, including things these kinds of as motorbike helmets, industrial protective headgear and even protective apparel.

‘The possible affect of the perform formulated in the SMARTHELMET venture goes beyond the biking environment,’ he provides, noting that the venture has also provided youthful scientists a excellent option for fingers-on encounter across diverse sectors.

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