Jabil has teamed-up with KAV Sports on made-to-order, personalized 3D-printed bike helmets. Recognized by Time Magazine as one of the ‘best inventions of 2022’, the KAV Portola helmet is made from custom nylon carbon-fibre material engineered by Jabil.
“To fulfill our mission of saving lives, we needed to produce a better-fitting helmet that people would want to wear,” said Whitman Kwok, founder and CEO of KAV Sports.
“For consumers to experience the benefits of customization, we had to overcome limitations in materials and manufacturing. Jabil knocked it out of the park by engineering a custom material that met stringent criteria and could be manufactured using 3D printing to create something really unique and special for the helmet industry.”
A release from the company noted that traditional bike helmets are typically made from injection-moulded, expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam.
KAV Sports added that helmets tend to… ‘come in one to three sizes, which fall short in accommodating various head sizes and shapes. Moreover, typical helmets have limitations in stability, durability, and comfort.’
While KAV wanted a novel material that was as light as EPS foam, the company sought performance in temperatures ranging from -15 degrees to over 60 degrees Celsius. KAV engineers evaluated more than 20 off-the-shelf materials, all of which failed to meet the company’s criteria for absorbing high-velocity impacts or providing sufficient stability under extreme environmental conditions.
KAV enlisted the help of Jabil to create a custom material that was stiff and strong yet flexible enough to accommodate both high and low temperatures. In addition to providing energy absorption, the material needed to increase layer-to-layer adhesion for consistent performance, as well as improved look-and-feel.
A team of additive manufacturing engineers, chemists, materials scientists, and production experts at Jabil’s Materials Innovation Center in Minnesota created the new and customized material.
“We take a polymer science approach to developing additive materials,” said Matt Torosian, Director, Product Management for Additive Manufacturing at Jabil.
“Jabil engineers materials that work with additive manufacturing processes in a repeatable manner to meet customer requirements and manufacture top-quality products.”
Jabil and KAV developed and tested nearly 30 iterations of custom polymer formulations and compounds before creating the proprietary nylon carbon-fibre composite that embodied all the necessary properties.
KAV then completed the necessary validation testing to achieve certification in accordance with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). When KAV launched the Portola helmet featuring the new material in April 2022, the company asserted that the product not only met but exceeded US CPSC safety standards for impact resistance by more than 25%.
KAV’s custom material is available in grey, black and white colours – while a custom-fitting process and the use of 3D printing enable two-to-three-week delivery of made-to-order helmets.
