Watching KC-Indy and several concussions have seemingly occurred. Now I am no materials scientist but I suspect the helmets are a major cause of concussions.
Other than losing the nice CRACK of helmet collisions why not pad the outside too?
It would not help at all. Concussions are the result of your brain moving inside your skull. Helmets prevent skull fractures and for that they do a wonderful job.
A nice thick foam helmet would definitely lower the acceleration of the brain inside the skull inside the helmet as the helmet collides with another nice thick foam helmet. So it would in fact reduce the risk of concussion. And watching football with the players having 3 feet diameter nerf helmets will add some hilarity to the game. Win-win.
There was and is a padded cover players can add to the top of their helmet. Called the ProCap, 49ers lineman Steve Wallace and Bills safety Mark Kelso wore them in the early 90s, but the NFL (via Riddell) quashed it by declaring them a neck injury risk. Both those players had long concussion histories, and never got another after using the ProCap.
Current helmets are still from a legacy of preventing skull fractures. Without any deformation in headgear (think automobile crumple zones) there will still be concussions.
I’m guessing there are engineers at Riddell and other companies that are looking into solutions. No idea why this is or isn’t viable, I’ve often though back to Kelso’s helmet and assumed it was at least a option worth exploring. The physics of it make sense and softening up the outside of the helmet would certainly lead to fewer impact injuries to hands and other extremities.
I’ve often been baffled that the screws on the facemasks are how they are, I remember some wicked scrapes and welts from collisions with those knobs at the brow from my high school days.
You’d want a wider helmet with more padding on the inside over padding on the outside. The stiffness of the helmet helps spread pressure. There might be ergonomic reasons against that though.
I think the risk of neck injury is too high. Two soft outer helmets impacting is likely to cause them to stick vs. slide, and result in a twist to the neck.
The soft layer could be covered by a thin slippery layer.
The soft layer could be a “crumple zone” that permanently deforms under a hard impact - this would tend to disclose the severity of an impact. It might mean that spare helmets would need to be available (as I expect they already are for many/most players).
Equipment will never solve the concussion problem. No matter how much helmets are improved, players will be trained and encouraged to hit harder and harder until the improved equipment fails at the same rate that the current equipment does.
You’ll never be able to eliminate concussions as long are this is a contact sport and players hit with their heads and fall and hit the ground with their heads. However, like any industry (aerospace, automotive, racing, etc… ) there are better designs and materials today than there were 10 years ago that make those industries safer. Traditional football helmets have not changed their basic design of a hard shell with various padding in the past 50 years. A company in Sweden has designed a helmet where the interior padding is decoupled from the shell. It has been shown to reduce rotational torque. Xenith’s concept is similar. Making a soft exterior with a lower coefficient of friction than the hard shells and allowing it to decouple from the helmet to move laterally with the impact force works. It has been shown to significantly reduce the impact forces as measured by Head Injury Criteria and Severity Index. The soft/hard/soft helmet design delivers better impact reduction than the hard/soft construction. It is based on Physics Young’s Modulus, which explains that an outer soft material of the proper density, stiffness and energy absorbing properties reduces the initial severity of impact. The intermediate hard shell then has lower forces transmitted to it, conveying lower forces to the interior padding and head. This is similar to automotive engineering, which incorporates soft plastic bumpers and crush zones followed by a stiff roll cage and finally, air bags and padding inside the vehicle. Biomechanical testing confirms that soft/hard/soft helmets improve HIC and SI numbers based on the soft/hard/soft design. Additionally, attaching the soft outer shell with elastic straps allow movement laterally, reducing whiplash effect. Under extreme rotational force or if grabbed, the snaps release and the cover acts the same as a tear away jersey, thereby addressing both linear and rotational forces. It’s science and engineering. The theory has been proven. Mark Kelso and Steve Wallace attest to this along with many others who have been using this new technology recently. It is time to bring helmet technology into the 21st century.
Again, the players will compensate until the equipment fails. The only solution is to change the nature of the sport itself to reduce the risk of head impact overall.
As a synergy, Cecil could explore this question as a follow-on to his column about rainbow-wig guy.