Gadgetory

my parents always wanted me to wear a bike helmet when I was a kid because you know it keeps me alive but I never wanted to it was big and ugly and made my hair look funny but there are people trying to solve that we're here at the Polytechnic Institute at NYU to talk to dr. Nikhil Gupta who's worked on helmets for Olympians the military athletes of all kinds and basically his goal is to make the safest best looking lightest coolest helmet on the planet and it all starts with fall so okay so first sort of a very broad level what happens in this lab what are you guys working on in here well we work on understanding how materials absorb energy and that's a very important application when you look at helmets you are looking at a very small space in which a lot of energy has to be absorbed we don't work on individual products we mainly work on developing materials and finding out what kind of loading conditions those materials will be working well in so we have six different kinds here right so what what differentiates I guess sort of my scientific knowledge is lacking so what what differentiates sort of one phone from the next so there are a few things that you can look at the forms if you look closely that the cell size of these forms is different that means how big the pores are on these forms and that kind of determines the density of these materials okay and how much energy they would absorb is related to the density of a form the denser the foam is it may absorb more energy compared to a much more lighter weight forms okay but now we have new methods of making forms lighter but increasing their energy absorption capability so some of these fancy forms not these ones but the ones that we are working in developing new ones might actually involve things like carbon nanotubes or nano fibers it's just so which keep the forms low density but at the same time they absorb a lot more energy than the traditional forms dr. Gupta told us that what he's testing isn't how aerodynamic your helmet is or how cool it looks he's not testing any particular helmet at all he's focused on foam every kind of foam you can imagine at about 10,000 other kinds too phone is the backbone of your helmet it's what absorbs the impact when you fall off your bike or get punched in the head and depending on what you're doing you need something very different in his lab dr. Gupta test the power of foam over and over he's constantly trying to find how much of a beating a certain type can take what if there's a pebble flying at it at 100 miles an hour or if you're on your bike skidding along the ground on a hot summer day what happens then dr. Gupta knows the effects of temperature vibration and time he also knows what happens if you fire a gun in terms of its ratio of density to strength the phone he makes can be stronger than steel of course everyone needs different phones though dense foam is heavy foam and dense foam might not be what protects us best anyway dr. Gupta works with the military and Olympians and regular people like me he's designing armor for the military that's both incredibly light and incredibly strong he's worked at the Olympic boxers who need a helmet that will take repeated abuse he's also worked with equestrians who need to be able to fall off a horse and survive those riders need a helmet that will take huge impact once rather than lesser impact over time or Olympic cyclist who spill off their bikes at huge speed and skid along the ground each needs a different kind of foam for a different kind of impact dr. Gupta is making sure helmets do what they really have to do keep us safe