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NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

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Re: NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

#41

Only thing safer helmets will do is encourage players to hit harder and harder, until someone really gets killed. I hope one day I will get to see the end of football. Why would any parent enroll their child in this sport?

There are several sports than can be dangerous and involve risk of death, like basically all forms of racing, climbing, endurance, etc. As long as practitioners are educated and consenting, I don't see a problem. The problem is if the those responsible for the athletes are not upfront on the risks, or if the athlete is not able to make a proper judgement to consent, like a child.

Yes, there are risks in all these activities, the problem with full-contact football, or hockey & lacrosse is that there is no way to be educated and consenting for an aspect that is inherent to the very nature of the activity, especially if you're a kid.

Up in Canada the pro-contact hockey crowd loves to talk about "teaching kids how to hit properly" which I'd suspect is a similar attitude to those coaching 5-yr-olds in full-pads football. But what does this mean? They seem to think that by addressing the technique of what is at it's a core a violent and damaging activity you can somehow mitigate the effects. I'm not buying it. Football is even worse; it's not the highlight reel tackles but the every single play collisions at the line that lead to long term, consistently demonstrated traumatic head injuries.

Frankly I feel that the NFL working to address the root causes of head injuries is like asking Facebook to take care of personal information and privacy protection. They are entirely incompatible.

Re: NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

#42

Only thing safer helmets will do is encourage players to hit harder and harder, until someone really gets killed. I hope one day I will get to see the end of football. Why would any parent enroll their child in this sport?

Because it's a blast to play. And treating children like they are made of glass is a terrible way to raise them.

Re: NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

#43
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't going to get the activity of football to go away even if it is risky and bad idea for ones health. Just look at all the dumb stuff our country does already. To pose a different question, I always wonder if this is the wrong direction. Why not remove the helmets altogether? Or go back to the leather ones? Has their been any comparative studies from head injuries back before the plastic shell was introduced?…

I have paid for season tickets to college football for the past 18 years. Recently I've been reading more and more about this problem and I feel guilty for contributing to injury of players, willful participants or not. I'm considering not renewing and not watching, and I think we'll see the end of football (as we know it anyway) in our time. However I do find the strategy and team aspect of the game compelling. I wo…

As someone who has no knowledge of the American version, I wonder if the actual play could just be simulated? For a noob, how much is skill on the players part Vs strategy?

Re: NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

#44

You really need accurate material models for this to be any use. Without being able to validate the baseline condition using the same non-linear, anisotropic, material behaviour profiles, there's no way to develop new geometry and/or use novel materials, and actually prove it's better than before. They would ideally release their own, repeatable analysis files of their own benchmark condition. I suspect the best helm…

>I suspect the best helmet for blunt impacts is probably a one/few-time use deal with crumple zones to absorb the energy of the impact and increase the time of the impact. After it's crumpled you would have to swap it out for a new helmet.

Bicycle and motorbike helmets already work like this. The energy-dissipative layer is made from expanded polystyrene foam, which permanently deforms and fractures on impact. The downside is that they're a one-shot item - once a helmet has taken an impact, it loses integrity and should be disposed of.

Helmets for football and hockey use a polypropylene foam, which doesn't absorb as much energy but will withstand multiple impacts. Polystyrene foam would be impractical at best for these helmets. There is often no visible evidence that a polystyrene helmet liner has been structurally compromised, so a player or coach has no way of checking that the helmet is still providing useful protection. If the helmet isn't replaced after every impact, then it might be offering less protection in practice than a polyurethane helmet.

The real villain here isn't the blunt force of a linear impact, but the rotation of the brain within the skull. This causes deep structural damage in the lower parts of the brain. Dealing with these forces is far more challenging, but I suspect that there are significant gains to be made with respect to the shape and structure of the wire face shield. The smooth plastic of the helmet's shell tends to produce glancing impacts with minimal rotation, but the face shield can snag and create horrendous rotational forces.

https://www.popsci.com/what-happens-to-football-players-brai...

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2013.0001...

Re: NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

#45

You really need accurate material models for this to be any use. Without being able to validate the baseline condition using the same non-linear, anisotropic, material behaviour profiles, there's no way to develop new geometry and/or use novel materials, and actually prove it's better than before. They would ideally release their own, repeatable analysis files of their own benchmark condition. I suspect the best helm…

The issue with the crash safety comparison is that helmets need to withstand many impacts before being replaced since it would be crazy to replace a helmet every play or two. One possible answer is that, in order to truly solve this problem, the sport must do away with facemasks or helmets altogether. Mike Ditka has long proposed removing the facemask, claiming that it has encouraged players to weaponize their heads…

Rugby does not have a helmet (except for the padded ones) and yet they still have concussion issues. I think there’s no clear answer although I agree about removing face mask.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC155428/

Re: NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

#46

You really need accurate material models for this to be any use. Without being able to validate the baseline condition using the same non-linear, anisotropic, material behaviour profiles, there's no way to develop new geometry and/or use novel materials, and actually prove it's better than before. They would ideally release their own, repeatable analysis files of their own benchmark condition. I suspect the best helm…

The issue with the crash safety comparison is that helmets need to withstand many impacts before being replaced since it would be crazy to replace a helmet every play or two. One possible answer is that, in order to truly solve this problem, the sport must do away with facemasks or helmets altogether. Mike Ditka has long proposed removing the facemask, claiming that it has encouraged players to weaponize their heads…

Why is it crazy to replace the helmets on each major impact? This is a multi billion dollar industry

Re: NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

#47

Only thing safer helmets will do is encourage players to hit harder and harder, until someone really gets killed. I hope one day I will get to see the end of football. Why would any parent enroll their child in this sport?

Simply play two hand touch or flag. Football is a fun game to watch and play without tackling.

I agree with you that this addresses the game of football, but certainly not the business of football.

Which one do you think the NFL cares more about?

Re: NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

#49
Safer helmets can do only so much as they are mostly a protection from external trauma. Little can be done to address the simple physics of inertia that causes the brain to crash into the skull due to sudden acceleration in any direction. The only thing that can drastically reduce that trauma is to make rule changes to the game to avoid the type of collisions that cause that acceleration.

Re: NFL Releases Finite Element Helmet Models

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with the crash safety comparison is that helmets need to withstand many impacts before being replaced since it would be crazy to replace a helmet every play or two. One possible answer is that, in order to truly solve this problem, the sport must do away with facemasks or helmets altogether. Mike Ditka has long proposed removing the facemask, claiming that it has encouraged players to weaponize their heads…

Rugby does not have a helmet (except for the padded ones) and yet they still have concussion issues. I think there’s no clear answer although I agree about removing face mask. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC155428/

Football has never had them, there is occasional concussion but certainly long term damage from heading the ball.

Increasingly, the take is that pre 12yo kids shouldn't be having any blows to the head. Having a helmet likely doesn't help that much until you get to the point of a major hit.

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