SAN ANTONIO – A team of researchers from the University of Texas San Antonio and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) have been working for the last year and a half to develop new helmet padding technology.
The team hopes to help athletes and soldiers alike avoid traumatic brain injuries, many of which go untreated.
“Seventy percent of traumatic brain injury remains undiagnosed, and people are getting hit in the head in contact sports, in military settings, but they don’t show any symptoms,” said Dr. Morteza Seidi, assistant professor in the engineering department at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “And that’s going to affect them later in life.”
The ongoing project started a year and a half ago, as students and professors worked together to accurately measure how the brain responds to hits at different impacts.
Using machines that hit test dummies at different velocities and angles, mechanical engineers started to 3-D print specially structured helmet padding.
While the project is still a long way from being used in the NFL, Seidi said it’s a passion of his to use it in high school football equipment.
“Most of the time, it’s overlooked because there’s less money there. But it’s the most important part: the young people they play, and they get concussions,” Seidi said. “They have to live with the consequences for the rest of their life and reach their full potential. It’s really important to take care of their self-safety and wellbeing”.
Meanwhile, researchers at SwRI say that while the football field is different from the battlefield, this technology can help soldiers. Dr. Daniel Portillo thinks it can be used in military helmets, body armor, and more.
“Just because a helmet stops a bullet or stops someone’s skull from touching the ground doesn’t mean that that person still can’t get a brain injury,” said Portillo. “It lets us protect the people that are protecting us better”.