Jabil/KAV Sports
Jabil has teamed with KAV Sports to produce made-to-order, personalised bicycle helmets with a custom engineered material and additive manufacturing technology.
The KAV Portola helmets are said to deliver a better fit with superior comfort and protection, with Time Magazine listing it as one of the 'best inventions of 2022.' Production of the energy-absorbing helmet structures would also not be possible via traditional manufacturing per the partners, with additive manufacturing also helping KAV to 'reduce production costs and unnecessary waste.'
Manufactured using a custom nylon carbon-fibre material engineered by Jabil to meet the exacting standards for performance and aesthetics, the KAV Portola helmet was launched in April 2022.
With typically manufactured helmets said to have limitations in stability, durability and comfort, as well as sizing, KAV wanted to leverage a novel material as light as EPS but with superior performance in temperatures ranging from -15°C to over 60°C. More than 20 off-the-shelf materials were said to be evaluated without any being able to meet the company's criteria for absorbing high-velocity impacts or providing sufficient stability under extreme environmental conditions.
Subsequent to that market evaluation, KAV commenced work with Jabil to develop a custom material that was stiff, strong, flexible and could perform in both hot and cold temperatures. In addition to providing excellent 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 a new and customised material that met KAV's specifications in nine months.
Across that nine months, nearly 30 iterations of custom polymer formulations and compounds before the proprietary nylon carbon-fibre composite was developed. KAV then completed the necessary validation testing to achieve certification in accordance with the U.S. 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 U.S. CPSC safety standards for impact resistance by more than 25%.
“To fulfil our mission of saving lives, we needed to produce a better-fitting helmet that people would want to wear,” commented Whitman Kwok, founder and CEO of KAV Sports. “For consumers to experience the benefits of customisation, 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.”
“We take a polymer science approach to developing additive materials,” added 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.”
The custom material developed by Jabil is available in grey, black and white colours to offer flexible choices, while a simple custom-fitting process and the use of 3D printing enable two-to-three-week delivery of made-to-order helmets. Off the back of this initial collaboration, KAV is planning to expand its product portfolio and market reach with Jabil's additive manufacturing expertise, its global AM capacity and its extensive supply chain capabilities.
Thanks to its highly productive collaboration with Jabil, KAV is planning to expand its product portfolio and market reach by leveraging Jabil’s additive manufacturing prowess, global additive manufacturing capacity and extensive supply chain capabilities.
