Motorcycle Safety

Having grown up around Motorcycle’s, I was aware of a lack of protective equipment on the market for riders. Conducting a survey which resulted in over 600 responses, my research pointed at the neck as the primary area of vulnerability for riders.

Understanding the reasons for the vulnerability around the neck was the next step. Whiplash being one of the most common causes of injuries for motorcyclists, this was the chosen area to takcle. It was established that the easiest way to reduce the range of motion was a neck brace, these can alread be seen in use for motocross and offroad riders around the world.

Following the initial stages, development of a neck brace which was in a ‘passive’ state when not needed and an ‘active’ state when required began. This took the form of an airbag system which was activated in the event of an accident. Here you can see some development sketches for the airbag location, design, and implementation. You can also see here my use of physical prototyping in order to develop the housing for the Co2 canister and the mechanism for the release of the gas into the bags. The decision to include individual bags was down to reliability and performance, allowing one bag to enflate even if one happened to fail.

Proof of concept was delivered through solidworks simulations and real world testing of the airbags. Due to the scale of the project, and the nature of the consequence of testing, i was unfotunately not able to test the product fully e.g. through a crash test.