Collegiate Times

Tech's football helmets contain sensors that record impact forces.

Researchers at Virginia Tech have found that Tech football players often experience impact forces similar to that of a collision with a small vehicle.

Tech scientists implemented the Head Impact Telemetry System six years ago and have since collected data from over 50,000 head impacts.

HITS utilizes circuitry, multiple accelerometers, and a wireless transmitter to send data from an athlete's helmet to a computer system. The technology is arranged in such a way that the equipment appears to be a traditional pad to the untrained eye.

Mike Goforth, director of sports medicine at Tech, said that it is rare for a player to complain about the sensors in his helmet.

"It's not a special helmet," Goforth said. "Every once in a while an athlete complains that they don't like it, but out of 60 players a year, we've only taken two out. It's not an intrusive device."

Goforth said that the sensors are located in the padding around the crown of the head inside the helmet.

Since the inception of the system the engineering college has worked collaboratively with the sports medicine department to improve and utilize the technology.

Stefan Duma, a mechanical engineering professor and coordinator of the HITS project said that the computer system receives data on linear and rotational acceleration of the head.     

"These show an idea in terms of how hard the players head was accelerating, and acceleration is a good indication of injury," Duma said. "We can go from there and look at what goes in to causing the brain injury."

The impacts recorded by Duma and his team are measured with respect to the acceleration of gravity, or 9.8 meters per second squared per unit.

Duma said that he sees 100-g impacts frequently, as well as several over 150-g. He added that his department has, on rare occasion, seen impacts of greater than 200-g.

"They are fairly uncommon, and we haven't had a lot," Duma said. "We haven't had over 10, but on a big impact we could see that."

Duma said that 100-g impacts are equivalent of that experienced in a car crash, with increasing degrees of such up to 200-g impacts, which would be much more severe.

"200-g's is like an extremely severe car-crash," Duma said. "One where there are injuries and big problems."

Timothy Gay, a physics professor at the University of Nebraska, has written several introductory level physics textbooks, citing some research done by Tech.

"It's very interesting stuff," Gay said. "I have done almost no research myself on the physics of football. My research is in atomic physics, so I break it down in terms of freshman physics principles."

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