Register now  |  Forgotten password?

The recyclable cycle helmet

ShareThis

At Going Going Bike we like innovation, so following on from our recent posting about the Hövding airbag collar, we’d like to draw your attention to a recyclable helmet design called the Kranium.

The Kranium is essentially a standard cycle helmet design with the inner part of the helmet constructed out of cardboard ribs that have been pressed out of a sheet of corrugated cardboard as opposed to the normal polystyrene lining.

The cardboard is coated with an acrylic waterproofing agent, which is also recyclable and prevents the cardboard from disintegrating when wet.

It is being marketed as an alternative to standard polystyrene helmets and is claimed to have four times greater impact protection. Kranium’s creator Anirudha Surabhi, an industrial design graduate, has tested the helmet against the relevant British Standard EN 1078.

Polystyrene is thought to be good for distributing impact energy over the head rather than absorbing it during a crash or a fall. The structure of Kranium has been developed to absorb the impact energy. The ribs of the structure have been designed to accommodate movement in some places where as it remains perfectly rigid in some areas. Thus during a crash the force peak of the impact is absorbed by the ribs tending to flex and de-flex. The remaining amount of energy is then absorbed by the crumpling nature of the corrugated ribs.

Mr Surabhi has already received over £10,000 of research and development funding from the James Dyson Bursary and James Dyson Fellowship (he of Dyson Vacuum fame) and is now looking for further investment to bring the product to market within the next six to 12 months after further stages of testing. He has estimated that price of his helmet could retail at £80.

To receive our weekly newsletter full of links to our top weekly blog posts register here.

Grab the GGB Weekly Newsletter

and we will send you our second hand bike buying guide.