About the Inventor of cone-head™

Don E Morgan, is a physicist, inventor, educator and motivational speaker. He is a member of the Australian Institute of Physics (M.A.I.P).

During the mid 1980s, Don was a member of a research team which investigated the effectiveness of motorcycle and bicycle helmets. The research project was funded by the Australian Federal Office of Road Safety and was conducted at the School of Civil Engineering, Queensland Institute of Technology in Brisbane.

One of the major findings of the project was that the liners of helmets were too hard and too stiff and the liners did not effectively absorb an impact force. A single density foam liner is also limited in its ability to accommodate the variation in strength of the human skull. With existing single density foam liners in helmets, the cranium distorts rather than the hard foam where 1-2 mm is the threshold of intracranial damage (Viano, 1985).

In addition, children’s bicycle helmets use liners designed for adult skulls. The liners do not account for a child’s skull which is more deformable in comparison to an adult(Corner et al., 1987). The more deformable skull of a child is less protective of the brain.

The report written at the completion of the Federal Office of Road Safety research project was the ‘Motorcycle and Bicycle Protective Helmets – Requirement Resulting from a Post Crash Study and Experimental Research’ can be accessed at:

http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/1987/Mcycle_Helm_1.aspx

In 1993, Don invented the new shock absorbing liner incorporating cones.

In 2000, Don was successful in gaining a grant from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) to manufacture and test samples of the newly designed foam cone-head™ liner and samples of single density foam found in current helmets. Comparative tests were conducted on both types of foam samples to the stringent Australian/New Zealand motorcycle and bicycle standards.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau study and the report, 'Improved Shock Absorbing Liners for Helmets', conclusively demonstrated the new shock absorbing cone-head™ liner is far superior in absorbing an impact force than the single density foam liners found in current helmets.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau report, 'Improved Shock Absorbing Liners for Helmets’ can be accessed at:

http://www.doi.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/2001/helmet_liner.aspx

Leo Szabo, research scientist and educator, is the co-researcher and co-author of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau study, 'Improved Shock Absorbing Liners for Helmets'.

The following narrative describes Don E Morgan’s journey as the inventor of the cone-head™ liner for helmets: Download

The following excerpt contains answers given by Don E Morgan in response to questions asked by a French motorcycle journalist, soon after cone-head™ won the 2007 invention of the year on ABC TV’s The New Inventors program:
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