Abstract
About 3.8 million concussions occur every year in the U.S. from sports-related injuries. Studying and improving the protective gears of the head, particularly by focusing on the use of foams, would help to mitigate traumatic brain injuries. The use of closed-cell polyurethane foams is widespread in protective football helmets applications. The purpose of this research is to investigate the maximization of energy absorption under impact-loading conditions through the use of foams, maximizing their protective potential. Implementing the hyperfoam model together with the Prony series it was possible to accurately describe the nonlinear hyperelastic-viscoelastic behavior of these foams. By plotting stress-strain curves of the constitutive model it was possible to visualize and understand how constitutive model parameters influence foam behavior and to choose the optimal starting parameters to input in ABAQUS to perform impact simulations on a foam sample. Changing parameters and properties in the software it was possible to determine how the energy absorption capability of foam was influenced by them. It was concluded that this research offered a new approach to study and maximize foams energy absorption capability, acting on the constitutive model parameters and on foam properties such as thickness and density. A method to understand and visualize how these parameters influence foam behavior was also presented, as well as a strategy to perform accurate FEA of impact conditions.