Study on Impact Loading Reduction Performance of "Origami Hat"

With the enforcement of the revised Road Traffic Act, wearing helmets has become a mandatory effort for all cyclists since April 1, 2023 in Japan. However, there are still many people who do not wear helmets. Therefore, we considered developing a foldable helmet that can be easily carried by applying the concept of origami engineering. Origami engineering is a research field proposed with the aim of developing lightweight, high-strength structural components based on the idea of origami, a traditional Japanese paper craft in which various shapes are created by folding paper-like materials. Under the same conditions of the safety test for industrial helmets, a 5 kg striker was dropped from a height of 1.0 m onto a dummy head wearing the hat in which impact energy absorption material was installed, and the impact load received by the dummy head was computed in the simulation. As a result, it was confirmed that it was possible to reduce the impact load by devising the proper material properties and folding shape.