EYEONRESEARCH Changing hats How do you make safety equipment more effective? Mechanical Engineering Professor P. K. Mallick is conducting research to find out. Mallick—an expert on lightweight materials like plastics and composites—and his students have been working to evaluate and suggest materials to reduce the weight of the average 14-ounce hardhat. The project,“Guardhat Material Selection and Product Lightweighting,”was funded by Guardhat, Inc. and the State of Michigan’s Economic Development Program’s Small Company Innovation Program. Guardhat’s overall goal is to incorporate smart technology into the hardhat’s design and to keep or increase the comfort of the currently used model—and that means starting with the weight of the hardhat. “With the added electronic equipment, the weight of the hat needs to be reduced so that it can be worn for long periods of time,” Mallick said. Although this research is outside the automotive arena that Mallick generally contributes to, he said the hardhat project also falls within his interest and expertise.The goal of both is to find ways to create a better, safer product. In the United States today,about three million people are injured every year on the job; more than 4,000 of those people die.The safety-focused technology will monitor the area and the conditions of those who regularly work on potentially hazardous sites. “The smart technology will have many functions,”Mallick said.“To give an example, if something were to happen in the work area, the activity would be wirelessly logged through the hat’s technology and sent to others.That way people would be notified immediately to take action.” Mallick recently completed phase one of the research and the company now is designing the next generation of the product based on his recommendations. | 5