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

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Provided an option concerning basic safety and convenience, some individuals are very likely to opt for convenience. The exact same is legitimate when it comes to bicycle helmets, which are likely to come to feel much too heat right after long or intense rides. The shape and non-optimised vents in the helmet as effectively as the insulated liners usually finish up trapping much much too much warmth.

Men and women commuting to operate on a bike, for instance, do not want a sweaty head and tussled hair for the reason that of wearing a helmet. With no compromising basic safety, scientists have been challenged to make the helmets a good deal cooler to wear. The predicament was tackled by the EU-funded SMARTHELMET venture which brought with each other investigation and business professionals to arrive up with a novel answer.

‘SMARTHELMET venture concentrated on producing helmets with lively thermal administration, wherever the ventilation can be controlled autonomously depending on a rider’s cooling desires,’ suggests venture coordinator Tiago Sotto Mayor of the University of Porto in Portugal.

By coming up with and developing new helmets that are cooler and extra comfy, the hope is that several extra will start off wearing them. Far more bikers indicate a extra lively populace and maybe cleaner air for those who opt for no for a longer time to commute by automobile. Furthermore, engineering that could help you save lives is not only clever but is also socially accountable.

‘Moreover, helmets are passive objects with a preset geometry and shape which cannot adapt to riders’ different thermal environments and ventilation desires,’ suggests Sotto Mayor.

Cooler heads prevail

Typical helmets provide only to defend a person’s head. So making a person that can also sense, predict and adapt its ventilation to the cooling desires of a rider requires a good deal of abilities.

For SMARTHELMET, this intended 1st bringing with each other a combine of professionals in biomechanics, electronics, thermo-regulation, engineering, production and innovation.

SMARTHELMET scientists then built-in electronics into bicycle helmets to help real-time sensing of physiological and environmental parameters. These parameters integrated heart amount, temperature and relative humidity, which have been applied to gauge a rider’s warmth output and various cooling desires.

‘We investigated methods to adapt the helmet ventilation by using improvements in the capabilities of its vents and joined their operation with the rider’s thermo-regulation desires,’ suggests Sotto Mayor.

The findings have been then built-in into an modern helmet idea to optimise ventilation by using sensing, electronics and clever operation. The idea also took in other factors like encompassing environmental situations and the cyclist’s degree of physical exercise.

Past cycling

LAZER, a corporation that layouts and sells bicycle helmets in extra than 65 nations around the world unfold more than five continents, was also associated in the venture. Sotto Mayor describes the company as a pure partner to flip the investigation into modern clever bicycle helmets.

Nonetheless, he also notes that the investigation has a huge probable in other sectors as effectively, including goods this sort of as bike helmets, industrial protective headgear and even protective clothes.

‘The probable effects of the operate produced in the SMARTHELMET venture goes further than the cycling earth,’ he provides, noting that the venture has also specified young scientists a good prospect for arms-on practical experience across different sectors.