The Center for Applied Biomechanics at the University is currently conducting innovative research on how to improve NFL player safety by engineering injury prevention gear using state-of-the-art lab technology. Jeff Crandall, Director of the Center for Applied Biomechanics, and Deputy Director Richard Kent are currently investigating how to improve gear used by the NFL to prevent both short-term and long-term injuries prevalent in professional football.
Kent said his lab started researching automobile safety about 30 years ago, and has since studied topics ranging from automobile safety to military protection and sports injury.
“We were doing some of the earliest work on lower limb injury around the time seatbelts and airbags were first being used,” Kent said. “A lot of people in accidents were living with bad lower limb injury and we were investigating how we could prevent that.”
The prevalence of similar injuries among professional football players prompted the NFL to contact Kent and Crandall about 10 years ago.
“They wanted to understand the mechanics of lower limb injury and injury prevention,” Kent said.
Along with the research for NFL player safety, the Center for Applied Biomechanics is also currently involved in automotive research, building computer models for human injuries and a research project with the Department of Defense, known as the WIAMan project. The Center — at about 40,000 square feet in size — is capable of conducting full scale crash tests. It has about 50 to 60 researchers, mostly consisting of professionals and graduate students.
The Center’s research with the NFL first started as engineering better cleats for different turfs. They have since expanded to improving shoulder pads, knee pads and helmets. Crandall and Kent are involved in the NFL’s Engineering Roadmap and they are now collaborating with other researchers across the country to investigate concussion prevention.
“The Engineering Roadmap is really a plan that we put together for transformational change and head protection that significantly improves the safety of NFL players in three to five years,” Crandall said.
With his expertise in automobile safety research, Kent said one of his main goals is to increase the level of safety in the sports industry to that of the automobile industry.
“We have a vision that if we take these tools and — from the experience that we have — our role is to come up with tests and sort of connect the marketplace and educate the people about how concussions occur and promote networking,” Crandall said. “We share our research with NFL players, medical personnel and manufacturers.”
The NFL’s Engineering Roadmap is divided into four tracks — characterizing the on-field environment, testing methods of evaluating the helmets and gear, developing new tools and connecting the marketplace and educating the general public.
“In a longer-term of five years, we want to better understand what’s occurring on the field for each position and engineer position-specific gear,” Crandall said.
Crandall also said he hopes his injury prevention research with the NFL has a much broader applicability to other sports, as well as feedback to his automotive safety research in preventing the less severe injuries in automobile crashes.
Kent sees a lot of potential in this project improving the industry.
“The world is going towards individualization, and we are getting to a point where we can create computer models of individuals and we can study how your injuries can be prevented, and it’s custom to you,” Kent said. “Our goal is to optimize performance and minimize risk.”
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