A First for Motorcycle Helmets

Head protection and injury reduction are be the primary goal of motorcycle helmets. Safety standards are in place to enforce an increasing level of protection to greatly reduce injuries and fatalities in motorcycle accidents. But these days people are becoming more fashion conscious and proud in wearing a comfortable safety apparel adopting the latest technology. This is why HyperWorks is the preferred solution to quickly respond to rapidly changing trends of fashion or for the most demanding safety and aerodynamic evaluation that set you apart from your competition.

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HyperWorks & Altair Product Design

Design and stile Safety evaluation Aerodynamic and comfort Engineering Consulting

solidThinking: Design and Stile

Solidthinking is a breakthrough 3D modeling and rendering environment that sets a new productivity standard for product design and presentation. It delivers all the tools for the creation of high quality, professional 3D models and the power to render helmets with unsurpassed photorealism. Solidthinking find pathways to winning designs sooner and reduce helmets product development cost while boosting designer productivity and creativity.

RADIOSS: Exceed Safety Requirements

The helmets main job is to protect the brain by spreading the impact energy over the widest area to reduce head injuries. This is achieved by designing an outer shell of optimal rigidity and strength able to withstand a severe impact and a softer crashable inner shell underneath able to spread the load and extend the time over which the helmets stops. Both comfort and safety have a role in the helmet design and computer simulation with RADIOSS helps identifying the best density distribution for the foam and evaluate the performance of the different materials used for the outer shell. RADIOSS easily simulates impact against helmet made of different materials, from expanded polystyrene or fiberglass to latest carbon fiber composite. Altair has extensive knowledge in design composites structures and HyperWorks is used to study the benefits of different fiber positions, number of layers, material type and gauges to obtain the desirable performance. Attachment such as spoilers, ducts and vents are used for both practical and style purpose. They create complications to the safety design of an helmet because they add weakening areas to the protective shell and may produce unpredictable twists during a crash event. HyperWorks can help the design of such areas by guiding the user to choose the best location, material, and shape of the anchor screw that will break at impact. As important but sometimes neglected area of research is the chin strap meant to keep the helmet tightly on the head during an accident no matter the direction of impacts. The retention system strength and dynamic can be simulated and the potential areas of failure identified and improved.

t +1 248.614.2400 f +1 248.614.2411 1820 E. Big Beaver Rd. Troy, MI 48083-2031 USA www.altair.com

Engineering Consulting
Region Europe Altair ProductDesign is a global multi-disciplinary development consultancy of more than 500 designers, engineers, scientists and creative thinkers. Combining the HyperWorks suite with our expertise in product development and process automation allows us to significantly shorten our clients traditional design cycle and deliver innovative engineering solution. For example different analysis can be easily setup up by using a wide range of speeds and direction for the anvil during the impact testing. Different helmet sizes or head form shapes could be interchanged and so can the anvil geometry used. This leaves time to explore additional scenarios that even if not required by the regulation could identify areas of improvement and increase performance particularly for helmets used in competition. The evaluation of the protective performance of a new helmet is complicated by the growing number of helmets safety standards in place in the world. Adopting virtual prototyping will reduce time and costs, offering more opportunities to design exploration and to judge the effectiveness of a motorcycle helmet in an accident. South America North America Asia/Pacific USA & Canada Japan Taiwan South Korea Thailand Singapore India Australia New Zealand Brazil Countries

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Motorcycle Helmet Safety Standard Laws Safety Standards ECE 22.05 DOT FMVSS-218 SG or JIS CNS KS G 7001 TIS PSB IS 4151 AS 1698-2006 NZ 5430 NBR 7471

Independant Standards: Snell SA2005 USA, SHARP-ACU UK

AcuSolve: Aerodynamic and Comfort

AcuSolve is a leading (CFD) Computational Fluid Dynamics flow solver with superior robustness, speed, and accuracy. AcuSolve is used to increase the aerodynamic performance of the entire helmet, or smaller areas like spoilers and ducts reducing the need of a wind tunnel. Acusolve is used to quickly validate geometry changes to the helmet shape and to fine tune new profiles. Optimization of air flow for maximum stability as well as studies to minimize lift, turbulence, buffeting are among its benefits. Fluid Dynamics simulation with Acusolve is used to study demisting and fog clearing from the visor, to reduce noise and to enhance comfort maximizing the exhaust of hot air and designing innovative vent channeling systems.

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t +1 248.614.2400 f +1 248.614.2411 1820 E. Big Beaver Rd. Troy, MI 48083-2031 USA www.altair.com