Biomechanics of head protection in ice hockey - development of hockey helmet computer - aided design tool

每年有32000名加拿大人在运动中遭受严重的创伤性脑损伤（TBI）。为了保护这些运动员，CCM致力于开发高性能曲棍球头盔，这可能有助于减少各种各样的冲击带来的线性和旋转加速度，并允许娱乐和专业球员更安全地进行他们最喜欢的运动。为了开发这样的头盔，他们目前使用的是经验方法，依赖于设计师的专业知识和对原型的实验测试。这种方法是昂贵的，耗时的，并且次优的，因为改进迭代的数量会极大地影响预算和上市时间。然而，由于缺乏对曲棍球比赛中可能发生的复杂冲击载荷下泡沫和头盔行为的了解，这种方法是目前唯一可用的方法。****因此，该项目的主要目标是开发工具和方法，以支持高性能曲棍球头盔的开发，帮助休闲和专业曲棍球运动员更安全地进行他们喜欢的运动，并充分发展他们的技能。为了实现这一主要目标，提出的方法方法包括：1)使用先进的实验工具表征复杂载荷下泡沫和头盔的行为；2)开发泡沫和头盔的有限元模型，以研究泡沫特性和头盔行为之间的关系；3)支持下一代曲棍球头盔的设计。****该项目的预期结果是，在短期内，提高对头盔中泡沫行为的理解，从长远来看，大幅提高CCM头盔的性能，减少开发时间和成本

Each year, 32 000 Canadians suffer severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) in sports. In order to protect these athletes, CCM is dedicated to developing high-performance hockey helmets that may help reduce linear and rotational accelerations from a large variety of impacts and allow recreational and professional players to perform more safely their favorite sport. To develop such helmets, they currently use empirical methods that rely on the designers' expertise and experimental testing on prototypes. This approach is expensive, time consuming and suboptimal as the number of improvement iterations greatly influences budget and time to market. This approach is, however, the only one currently available due to a lack of knowledge on foam and helmet behavior under the complex impact loadings that may occur during a hockey game. ****Thus, the main goal of this project is to develop tools and methods to support the development of high-performance hockey helmets that help recreational and professional hockey players perform more safely their preferred sport and fully develop their skills. To achieve this main objective, the proposed methodological approach includes: 1) characterization of foam and helmet behavior under complex loadings using advanced experimental tools, 2) development of finite element models of foam and helmets allowing to investigate the relationship between foam characteristics and helmet behavior, and 3) support of the design of the next generation of hockey helmets.****The expected results of this project are, in the short term, to improve the understanding of foam behavior in helmets and, in the long term, to substantially improve CCM helmet performance and reduce development time and cost.**