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However the road has been a long and winding one for its inventor, Brisbane-based physicist Don Morgan, whose research into helmet liners began more than two decades ago.
“I was a member of research team here in Brisbane,” Mr Morgan says. “The project was funded by the Federal Office of Road Safety and we were looking at effectiveness of motorbike and bicycle helmets. One of the most important roles was to go out with the traffic investigation squad and retrieve a helmet from fatal or very serious motorcycle and bicycle accidents.
“One of most important features that we observed was that the foam liner itself showed very little evidence of damage, which was telling us that the forces were readily translated through the thickness of the liner to the skull.
“So in other words, the liners were too hard and stiff. We made a recommendation at the completion of the report to soften liners in helmets.
“Probably about five years after that, I picked up a child’s helmet and I pushed my thumb into the helmet liner and I left no indentation,” Mr Morgan continues, “and I thought to myself, we made this recommendation to soften liners, and no-one has taken it up.”
Don Morgan became so concerned that nothing was being done, that he decided to act alone. In 1993 he came up with the concept of a duel layer liner, consisting of an inner layer of impact-absorbent, low-density foam cones; embedded into an outer layer of higher-density supportive foam.
The next task was to find the optimum combination of foam densities to make up the liner.
“In the year 2000 I was fortunate to get a grant from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau,” says Mr Morgan, “which allowed me to manufacture and test flat foam samples of the new design. And also we manufactured a whole batch of single density hard foam and made comparisons.
“We found that the new designed liner was far superior in absorbing an impact force that the single density hard foam, and we obtained an improvement of up to 10 per cent improvement on the crushing.”
With the testing complete, the final design of the inner liner was to be a complex combination of foam densities, as Mr Morgan explains.
“The most important feature of cone-head is that it’s divided up into sections,” says Mr Morgan. “Each section takes into account the different thicknesses and strengths of the skull, and there’s no other helmet on the market that has taken that into account.”
By the end of 2000 Don Morgan finally had a proven product ready to try and release to the open market.
“I thought it would be all downhill from there, but it wasn’t,” Mr Morgan says.
“It proved to be very difficult to obtain funding and to find someone to actually manufacture the helmet itself. One example – on three occasions I applied for the Queensland Government’s ‘Innovation Start-Up Scheme’. Each time I was unsuccessful.
“The third time I guess that was the lowest point of my journey – I nearly walked away from it. I was so devastated and I was so disappointed. And it was only my wife and family that urged me to keep going.
“I thought, ‘well okay then Australia’s not interested in it I’ll see if someone overseas is interested in it’.”
Having been forced to sell the idea abroad, there was some consolation for Don Morgan in 2007, when he was voted Australia’s “New Inventor of the Year”.
“I thought I was a winner when I won episode 29 of the ABC’s New Inventors!” says Mr Morgan. “I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d go all the way to be the actual winner – the inventor of the year! So it was quite a surprise.”
After more than two decades of research and development, “cone-head” is finally set to go into manufacture this year, through an as-yet confidential foreign deal. So what advice would its creator give to other budding inventor’s facing the same uphill struggle?
“My advice would be to hang in there – never give up,” Mr Morgan says. “You’ll find one door closes – try another one; that one may open. Just keep on trying …”
“I was a member of research team here in Brisbane,” Mr Morgan says. “The project was funded by the Federal Office of Road Safety and we were looking at effectiveness of motorbike and bicycle helmets. One of the most important roles was to go out with the traffic investigation squad and retrieve a helmet from fatal or very serious motorcycle and bicycle accidents.
“One of most important features that we observed was that the foam liner itself showed very little evidence of damage, which was telling us that the forces were readily translated through the thickness of the liner to the skull.
“So in other words, the liners were too hard and stiff. We made a recommendation at the completion of the report to soften liners in helmets.
“Probably about five years after that, I picked up a child’s helmet and I pushed my thumb into the helmet liner and I left no indentation,” Mr Morgan continues, “and I thought to myself, we made this recommendation to soften liners, and no-one has taken it up.”
Don Morgan became so concerned that nothing was being done, that he decided to act alone. In 1993 he came up with the concept of a duel layer liner, consisting of an inner layer of impact-absorbent, low-density foam cones; embedded into an outer layer of higher-density supportive foam.
The next task was to find the optimum combination of foam densities to make up the liner.
“In the year 2000 I was fortunate to get a grant from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau,” says Mr Morgan, “which allowed me to manufacture and test flat foam samples of the new design. And also we manufactured a whole batch of single density hard foam and made comparisons.
“We found that the new designed liner was far superior in absorbing an impact force that the single density hard foam, and we obtained an improvement of up to 10 per cent improvement on the crushing.”
With the testing complete, the final design of the inner liner was to be a complex combination of foam densities, as Mr Morgan explains.
“The most important feature of cone-head is that it’s divided up into sections,” says Mr Morgan. “Each section takes into account the different thicknesses and strengths of the skull, and there’s no other helmet on the market that has taken that into account.”
By the end of 2000 Don Morgan finally had a proven product ready to try and release to the open market.
“I thought it would be all downhill from there, but it wasn’t,” Mr Morgan says.
“It proved to be very difficult to obtain funding and to find someone to actually manufacture the helmet itself. One example – on three occasions I applied for the Queensland Government’s ‘Innovation Start-Up Scheme’. Each time I was unsuccessful.
“The third time I guess that was the lowest point of my journey – I nearly walked away from it. I was so devastated and I was so disappointed. And it was only my wife and family that urged me to keep going.
“I thought, ‘well okay then Australia’s not interested in it I’ll see if someone overseas is interested in it’.”
Having been forced to sell the idea abroad, there was some consolation for Don Morgan in 2007, when he was voted Australia’s “New Inventor of the Year”.
“I thought I was a winner when I won episode 29 of the ABC’s New Inventors!” says Mr Morgan. “I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d go all the way to be the actual winner – the inventor of the year! So it was quite a surprise.”
After more than two decades of research and development, “cone-head” is finally set to go into manufacture this year, through an as-yet confidential foreign deal. So what advice would its creator give to other budding inventor’s facing the same uphill struggle?
“My advice would be to hang in there – never give up,” Mr Morgan says. “You’ll find one door closes – try another one; that one may open. Just keep on trying …”
