2007-2008 Physics Capstone Projects
Justin Barden
Experimental Study of the Effectiveness of Bicycle Helmets in Reducing Impact Forces on the Head
Each year extreme athletes push the height at which they perform stunts. Half-pipe bicycle athletes find themselves performing tricks from ten to fifteen feet in the air. At this height taking an impact directly to the head could be fatal unless equipped with the proper helmet. Our goal is to determine if a standard bicycle helmet will protect the head from a height reached by an extreme athlete. Additionally, we are testing to see if there is a difference in the protective ability of Snell vs. CPSC certified bicycle helmets. This experiment focusus on impact qualities of the Snell and CPSC certified bicycle helmets from a range of heights ten to fifteen feet. We expect to see that the Snell certified bicycle helmet to perform better than the CPSC certified due to higher impact expectations that comes with a Snell certified helmet.
Dustin Kofstad
Modeling of Nonlinear Absorption at Infrared Wavelengths in Capillary Waveguides
Many data transmission and imaging applications, especially in the military, use sensitive optical devices that can be potentially damaged by high intensity lasers. Additionally, many of these data transmission and imaging applications involve the use of fiber optics. The pairing of this fiber optic technology with nonlinear absorbers can offer the kind of protection necessary to prevent laser damage to the sensitive optical devices used in these applications. In order to be most effective, it is necessary to consider the operational wavelength range of the systems used in data transmission and imaging applications. Current applications often operate at infrared wavelengths so it is imperative to develop nonlinear absorbers that function particularly well in this part of the spectrum. The focus of this work was to use computational models of experimental data in order to gain important insights into the optical properties of one particular material, (polypridyl) osmium (porphinato) zinc II, that has been observed to exhibit nonlinear absorption at infrared wavelengths.
Project Poster (pdf)
Judi Reasoner