Modern bike helmets are made through complex materials engineering.

Imagine – it’s the mid-1800s, and you’re riding your high-wheeled, penny-farthing bicycle down a dusty road. Sure, it may have some bumps, but if you lose your balance, you’re landing on a relatively soft dirt road. But as the years go by, these roads are replaced with pavement, cobblestones, bricks or wooden slats. All these materials are much harder and still quite bumpy.

As paved roads grew more common across the U.S. and Europe, bicyclists started to suffer gruesome skull fractures and other serious head injuries during falls.

As head injuries became more common, people started seeking out head protection. But the first bike helmets were very different than helmets of today.

I’m a materials engineer who teaches a course at Georgia Tech about materials science and engineering in sports. The class covers many topics, but particularly helmets, as they’re used in many different sports, including cycling, and the materials they’re made of play an important role in how they work. Over the decades, people have used a wide variety of materials to protect their heads while biking, and companies continue to develop new and innovative materials.

In the beginning, there was the pith helmet... Read the full, original article. 

Author:
Jud Ready
Principal Research Engineer in Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.  Johner Images via Getty Images