Optimisation of an elastomeric pre-buckled honeycomb helmet liner for advanced impact mitigation

Adams, Rhosslyn, Soe, Shwe and Theobald, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3227-7130 2023. Optimisation of an elastomeric pre-buckled honeycomb helmet liner for advanced impact mitigation. Smart Materials and Structures 32 (9) , 095012. 10.1088/1361-665x/ace94b

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Abstract

Advances in computational modelling now offer an efficient route to developing novel helmet liners that could exceed contemporary materials’ performance. Furthermore, the rise of accessible additive manufacturing presents a viable route to achieving otherwise unobtainable material structures. This study leverages an established finite element-based approach to the optimisation of cellular structures for the loading conditions of a typical helmet impact. A novel elastomeric pre-buckled honeycomb structure is adopted and optimised, the performance of which is baselined relative to vinyl nitrile foam under direct and oblique loading conditions. Results demonstrate that a simplified optimisation strategy is scalable to represent the behaviour of a full helmet. Under oblique impact conditions, the optimised pre-buckled honeycomb liner exceeds the contemporary material performance when considering computed kinematic metrics head and rotational injury criterion, by up to 49.9% and 56.6%. Furthermore, when considering tissue-based severity metrics via finite element simulations of a human brain model, maximum principal strain and cumulative strain density measures are reduced by 14.9% and 66.7% when comparing the new material, to baseline.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Advanced Research Computing @ Cardiff (ARCCA) Engineering
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, Type: cc-by
Publisher:	IOP Publishing
ISSN:	0964-1726
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	31 July 2023
Date of Acceptance:	20 July 2023
Last Modified:	12 Jun 2024 12:50
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/161351

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