SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY (SMA) HELMET RETENTION SYSTEM
Fall 2019, Academic Group Project
For Fall 2019 AME 441a: Senior Design Project at USC, my team and I decided to create a 3D printed self-fastening helmet using shape memory alloys, a relatively new material with super-elastic properties that reverts to a trained shape upon being heated up.
This product tackles the problem of the additional risk that a helmet could detach from the head in a collision (and leave the head vulnerable to damage) from improper wear of helmets, such as users wearing the wrong size.
Over the course of the semester, my team and I performed research on the applications and recent studies on SMAs, conducted user studies to determine the comfortable helmet pressure around a head, and designed and built several iterations of our product. Our team produced several written documents and a final exhibition poster to communicate our findings.
Click on the photos below for more information.
