says the next step in the evolution of helmets—removing the outer polycarbonate layer Riddell and its competitors mold onto helmets—is less intuitive.
“We still have a helmet that’s made out of a rigid, brittle surface, so [upon impact] you create a shockwave,” Whitcomb says.
Landry says he agrees with Whitcomb that helmets are effective at certain things, like diffusing concussive force, but there are downsides to how they’re made.
“Helmets [today] are designed to prevent skull fractures and lacerations, and they do a fine job of that,” says Landry. “But they’re not particularly designed to prevent concussions. [Whitcomb] may be on the right track—the bubble wrap makes some sense because it has more give than current padding.”
Landry says the efficacy of Whitcomb’s helmets may come down to their ability to reduce “acceleration-declaration” forces. When it comes to concussions, says Landry, these forces are associated with the sudden movement of the head in space, which can cause the brain to rotate. They’re also a concern for engineers aiming to protect athletes in high-impact sports besides football.
“When I lived in Indiana, I learned about interventions that they did with IndyCar drivers to try to reduce the risk of injury,” Landry says. “Many of the walls and different barriers on an Indy track collapse when they get hit, to reduce the force to the car and the driver. Similar concept, I think, in a helmet—if you can find a material that can absorb some of the force, then you reduce the acceleration-deceleration of the head in space, and therefore the brain inside the skull.”
Whitcomb says this energy-absorption principle is also visible in the design of car bumpers and air bags, and rubber cases for smartphones. He believes his helmet, which he says should weigh less than 6 ounces once completed, could be used for other team games like baseball and cricket, as well as for adventure sports like kayaking and horseback riding.
One type of helmet testing involves taking two prototypes, each of which has an accelerometer attached, and crashing them together. Whitcomb says he uses a machine made by a company called Data Physics that can measure up to 250,000 data points per second.
“Let’s see how big of a shockwave the two helmets create and see how much the air cells reduce the shockwave,” he says. “It requires incredible repetition to get clean data collections. If your air cells pop, then you have to put on new ones. That’s the design challenge: making tough enough air cells with enough pressure and resilience in them.”
While Whitcomb’s idea has garnered attention and awards, turning football helmet design on its head would require committing large amounts of time and money to the endeavor.
But changing public sentiment may be creating the impetus for those investments. Some Americans—including President Obama—are starting to think twice about whether they’d let a loved one play tackle football.
Landry, who has been around the game as both a player and a medical professional, says the trend is understandable. But he says that inactivity, which contributes to childhood obesity, is the greater concern.
“There’s no question that the risk of playing football is higher than other sports,” Landry says. “I do have a problem with kids who are not physically active and getting exercise, and football is the only sport they would play. Our biggest problem in this country is inactivity.”
