Tampa company wants to bring high-tech protection to helmets

Designers of a material protecting soldiers in Humvees and Cobra helicopters hope they can make a difference for athletes susceptible to head injuries.

Since 2005, the inch-thick padding designed by Tampa-based Mitigator Inc. has helped absorb the horrific force of war, from helicopter crashes to land-mine explosions. Their seats are designed to absorb the force of blasts that vary anywhere from 300 to 1,400 times the force of gravity in a split second.

"It's a proven design in the military. ...It's been used across the globe in terms of dealing with IED (improvised explosive device) impacts," says Robert Masse, Mitigator's director of engineering.

About a year ago, Masse and Mitigator's president, Richard McKinney, decided to see if the padding could provide protection inside football helmets. The pair regularly watches sports together and saw a connection between controversial hits to the head and the impact soldiers encounter.

"The concept was if we can deal with mine blasts then we should be able to deal with football players, baseball players, whatever on the field," Masse says.

The force of a helmet-to-helmet blow regularly registers at 100 times the force of gravity or more. And safety advocates and football officials acknowledge that the repetitive nature of football increases the risk for concussion and long-term mental health complications.

Mitigator's padding doesn't look especially high-tech. But its pattern, with rows of air channels in the dense-but-flexible plastic-like material, distributes the force inside the padding and not into the human body it is protecting.

McKinney says they have spent the last year compressing the protective seating material into lightweight body armor and helmet padding. It's not easy whittling an inch-thick pad down to 3/8ths of an inch or smaller, he says.

But that's what you need if you want the padding to be incorporated into the helmets, pads and chest armor worn by professionals in football, hockey and other sports.

"When you've got an athlete running on the field, they don't want to weigh too much," McKinney says.

Thousands of trials already have been conducted on a calibrated pressure device at Mitigator's Brandon-area facility. Essentially, the machine is hurling the weight of a medium-sized bowling ball down at the material, at a variety of speeds.

The company also tested leg and chest protectors on athletes, including Dimiti Afanasenkov, a left wing with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Masse says Afanasenkov was pleased with how the material absorbed body blows. Its 2-pound weight, however, was still too much for a player who needs speed and agility at every turn.

Within a few months, the men hope to pitch a prototype to athletic helmet companies. They also plan to propose the padding for military helmets.

McKinney is optimistic, and patient. It took 12 years before the company won a contract to make Cobra helicopter seats. Seats also are being used outside the military, in speed boats, snowmobiles and race cars.

Masse, the engineer, likes the challenge of taking this military product mainstream. NASA brought microwave ovens and TANG into American homes, why can't Mitigator make the game of football a little safer, he asks.

"If we can figure out how to take a military product and move it into a consumer-based good, I couldn't be more happy."

(813) 259-7365