Impact Protection Suit With Air-Gap Head Isolation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional football helmets fail to adequately protect against head, neck, and spinal injuries by allowing impact forces to be transferred to the wearer's skull and brain, and can cause injuries to opposing players due to their hard-shell design, with no effective prevention of spinal injury from head rotation or whiplash.
Innovation Solution
An impact protection suit with a spacious head region, articulating face and shoulder guards, and integrated sensors for impact detection, providing spacing between the head and interior walls to minimize contact and offering audio-visual alerts for impending collisions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If conventional hard-shell helmet design is used, then head impact protection is provided through force spreading, but impact force is still transferred to the skull and brain causing concussions and spinal injuries
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an air gap as an intermediary space between the head and the helmet interior. This air gap acts as a mediator that absorbs and dissipates impact forces before they reach the skull and brain, preventing direct force transfer while maintaining the protective function of the hard shell
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the head from direct contact with the helmet interior by creating spacing between them. This separation removes the harmful interaction pathway where impact forces would be transferred to the skull and brain, allowing the helmet to protect without causing secondary injuries
2Strength
If hard-shell helmet design is used, then structural protection is provided, but the helmet acts as a battering ram causing injuries to opposing players
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies different properties to different parts of the helmet system. The exterior shell maintains hard properties for structural protection, while the interior surface near the head is made softer or spaced away to reduce impact transmission to both the wearer and opposing players during contact
3Area of stationary object
If conventional helmet design is used, then basic head coverage is provided, but no protection is offered against spinal injury from excessive head rotation or whiplash
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extends protection from the traditional two-dimensional head coverage to three-dimensional spatial protection by creating a volumetric air gap around the head. This additional spatial dimension allows the head to move freely without contacting the helmet interior, preventing rotational and whiplash injuries that would occur with rigid head-helmet contact
Data Source
AI summary
A unibody impact protection body suit apparatus that provides air spacing between the head of a user and the interior of the head region of the suit, face and shoulder protection, and situation awareness prior to impact to help prevent various head, neck, shoulder, upper body, and spinal injuries to a user in a contact sport. In particular, the impact protection suit includes a head region having an interior wall region, a shoulder region, and a torso region. Here, the impact protection suit is configured such that the head region provides a vertical and horizontal air spacing between a user's head and the interior wall region that allows the user's head to move within and relative to the housing and further prevents vertical and horizontal contact of the user's head with the interior surface of the housing, thereby minimizing or preventing various, head, neck, and spine injuries.