Glossary of terms

• TIL- Total internal leakage.
• PM25- particulate matter
• Reference line- an invincible line on a bike helmet in line with the wearer temple.  The lineits primary used in safety tests and certification.
• Pulmonary- lungs
• NOAA- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is an American scientificagency within the United States Department of Commerce that focuses on the conditionsof the oceans, major waterways, and the atmosphere.
• PPM- - Parts per million - a dimensionless measure of small concentration levels ofpollutants in air, water, body fluids. PPM is the molar mass, volume or mass ratio betweenthe pollutant component and the solution. (engineering tool box ,2019)
• IHME- Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. A research institute collecting globalhealth statistics and evaluating impact at the University of Washington in Seattle
• BSI- British standards institution
• EN- European standards institution
• NOx – nitrous oxide
• CO2- carbon dioxide

ABSTRACT

Research commercially viable solutions to address the health effects of air pollution on cyclist's health. Contemporary solutions to air pollution as a whole are not being implemented fast enough to mitigate negative health effects associated with low air quality.Despite slow progress, legislation and culture have continued to utilise alternative forms of transport such as cycling. Its therefore important to focus on solutions that can reduce the negative effects on cyclist’s health. Current pm25 masks underperform significantly andrestrict cyclist performance due to low ml/kg/min flux rate caused by low flow rates as a result of air filter restriction. This research study used primary research to sample the general public and professional cyclists' opinions on air pollution furthermore, secondary research was then conducted to establish the viability of the research study outcomes. The Research concludes that the proposed solution is commercially viable both from a financial and industrial design standpoint, but to ensure market traction would have to be launched in China and India which accounts for majority of the global air pollution mask market share,with china's currently accounting for $600 million as of 2015 and increasing.

AIMS

Justify the Product Need

Carry out market research

Feasibility study

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RESEARCH STUDY OBJECTIVES

• Research aims
• Research objectives
• Interview aims and objectives
• Interview analysis
• Interview conclusion
• Survey aims and objectives
• Survey analysis
• Survey conclusion
• Product disassembly aims and objectives
• Product analysis
• Product disassembly analysis conclusion
• Status report- global air pollution
• Pm25 exposure rate
• Demographics of those affected.
• Airflow rates
• Cycling statistics cycling frequency
• Scientific review of current products
• Swot analysis
• Porter five forces
• Market research conclusion
• Anthropometric and physiological ergonomics
• Design methodology
• Standards
• Materials & manufacturing processes
• Product lifecycle analysis
• Components
• Product design specification

INTERVIEWS

The interview was conducted to provide deeper insights. From cyclists who commuted daily.In addition to that some of the cyclists have raced professionally and therefore they were theright candidate to interview because their experience about cycling is the equivalent of anethnographic study.  Revealing insights about what makes cycling gear comfortable or whythey cycle.

Interview aims

• To collect expert views and insight on the problem at hand.
• To critically analyse the data to identify possible solutions to the problem.

Objectives

• Interview with 3 cyclists.
• Minimum interview time of 30 minutes
• To collect views and experiences from a cyclist who has raced.

Question format:

The format for the interview is simple, it contains the date, name, job title and questions. The Question format Is open.  Doing so to prevent the interviewer from interrupting the interview process, which doing so interrupts the participants train of thought.  See Appendix

Interview analysis method

The analysis of the information collected from the interview process will be conducted using the inductive grounded theory approach. This will involve starting with the collection of interview transcripts. Quotes from which will be categorised into generalisations and themes. Patterns will then be identified and comparative analysis will then take place, to determine the meaning and subjectivity of the collected data.  Following that, a series of statements summing up the opinions and finding will be made.

Question evaluation

1. This question is important because it establishes to what degree a commercially available solution would be of interest in the future.
2. Adding this question to the interview material helps prepare the interviewer to respond openly and too un-restrictively vocalise their opinions, which would provide valuable qualitative data to the study.
3. This question will establish the degree to which people are aware of the effects, should they be aware this should come across. This question primary objective is too further established what cyclists are doing as a result of their awareness.
4. The purpose of this question is to probe cyclists about their views on what a good design solution would look like and hear what their reasoning maybe for the lack of a viable solution.
5. This question is highly appropriate considering that semi-pro to the professional cyclists are well researched and informed on human physiology, therefore their expertise will be valuable, providing qualitative insights on long term statistical data sets that often fail to contextualise the effects and on of air pollution to using do to long term exposure.

Inductive – grounded theory analysis

Some of the more experienced racers offered considerable insight as to the lack of adoption of possible solutions.as mentioned in (timestamp, [00:18:22.910]). Mentioning value and performance as the primary reasons why consumers have not bought into the specialised filter masks as widely as they should have.

After reviewing the interview of the cyclists, it becomes apparent that due to geographic predispositions that the participant purchase decisions would be dictated by geographic predisposition, with Asian and middle eastern cities being more inclined to consider making a purchasing decision. This was mentioned in transcription one (Timestamp, [00:03:48.430])Additionally, despite the necessity of a proposed product solution, interviewees mentioned that their purchase decision would be guided primarily by the high performance at a low price and other emotional values such as comfort, convenience and social acceptance.

Conclusion

The interviews have addressed some of the primary research aim and objectives. Managing To collect insights and opinions from cyclists who have raced before. Most of the interviewed cyclists mentioned that the widespread adoption of cyclist pm25 filter may not have occurred due to pricing, performance and social stigmas associated with such devices. Dueto logistical and time constraints, only one interview was conducted, lasting thirty minutes.Therefore, using the inductive research approach to analyse the interview was beneficial because the collected opinions could be generalised and placed into categories for later analysis. Doing this ensured that the expert opinions and insights could be used to formulate survey questions, which would help to establish the credibility of the stated opinions. To Compare real-world insights with the interview insights. Further recommendations for the interview process would include interviewing a larger census of participants rather than interviewing substrata of cyclist demographics, this may include increasing the number of possible interviews with 500 participants. A premise to reduce an assumption.

Survey

This Survey is to be designed to collect quantitative data to evaluate the opinions and insights from the interview process

Aims

•   To collect enough data to perform a comparative analysis

•   To collect from a large demographic set to establish the validity of the research aims.

•   To critically analyse the data to identify possible trends amongst the data set.

Objectives

•   Collect a Minimum of 30 replies

•   Collect data on possible product prices

•   Find out the proportion of people willing to make a purchase decision.

Example questions

1. How concerned are you about air pollution?
2. How often do you cycle in a: week month or year?
3. Helmets?
4. Air pollution Mask is necessary?
5. How much would you pay for a mask that requires no filters?

Survey Question evaluation

1. This Questions objective is to collect qualitative data, in this case, it will gatherinformation about how the interviewee feels about air pollution on a scale. In keepingwith the objectives of the survey, the question has been formatted using a quantitativelogarithmic scale, a scale for words leading from worst to best. Doing so to disinhibitambiguity, secondarily, as a result, this will improve the questions response rate making ita good writing consideration.
2. The purpose of this question is to collect quantitative data about often people cycle andreflect the approximate accuracy of the conducted research, should a sufficient data setbe sampled, it should reflect existing and up to date national cycling survey. Additionally,to ensure a high response rate the question has been formatted using a multiple-choiceformat with the week- months etc. As responses.
3. This question was included to establish the proportional of people who may not be likelyto make a purchase decision. This question is only added for empirical statics.
4. The purpose of this question is to gather quantitative statistics on acceptable pricingpoints, the distribution of which should inversely reflect the adoption cycle of a product,see figure 1 below.  With early entrants pays the most. The only exception being lateadopter paying the least.

Survey Question response analysis

This survey consisted of four questions and was designed to have a minimum completionrate of 80% as seen in Table 2 below. The survey achieved a 100 % completion rate andreceived 30 responses. The premise of this survey was to collect enough data to establishthe viability of expert opinions and to perform a comparative analysis to determineparticipant purchase decision factors using: pollution awareness, price and values as aframework.

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Results summary

Question one

Appendix A figure 14, Question one’s pricing comparison was carried out to compare theprice points against the participant's concern on air pollution, current results indicate that100% of participants will not pay more than £99 for a bike helmet. Furthermore, it was notedthat participants who were slightly or not at all concerned were not willing to pay more than£59 for a helmet.

Question two

Appendix A Figure 16, response data shows that majority of the participants 51.6% neverrode bikes, a substratum of that data set, 14 out of 29 participants who never ride bikeswere most likely to spend no more than £59 on a helmet, participants who were willing tospend between £59 to £99 accounted for 17.24% of the set, 3 out of 5 never rode a bikemore than a few times a month.

Question three

Appendix A Figure 18, the data set shows that participants who answered that helmets werenot necessary were not willing to spend more than £59 on a helmet, participants whoresponded with “necessary” made up the majority of the substrata who were will to paybetween £59 and £99 for a helmet. Appendix A Figure 23 (purchase motivation comparison)participant who responded with necessary accounted for 77.78% for the responses,participants who responded with “necessary” and cycled every day accounted for 33.33%of the responses, found helmets to be inconvenient.

Question four

Appendix A figure 20, responses showed that 100% of participants were not willing to paymore than £99 for a helmet.  82.76% of participants were not will to pay more than £59 for ahelmet, the remaining 17.24% were not willing to spend more than £99 on a helmet.

Conclusion

The survey met all its aims and objectives. Majority of participants are not willing to spendmore than £99 on a helmet, the majority are willing to spend £0 to £99 are made ofparticipants who were very concerned and extremely concerned accounting for 64.51% ofparticipants.  Participants who cycled more than a few times a week were predisposed tofind helmets as an inconvenience. The survey illustrates that proportionally, cycling is a bigmarket, with 49% of all participants having ridden a bike of the last year or so. This survey'slimitations were predominately made up by limitations in the question consideration,Question 3 Appendix Figure 9 as seen below shows the participant may have skipped thequestion this may be due to the fact the question should have been worded as "necessarybut inconvenient” rather than “inconvenient”. The survey has made it clear that theproposed product solution must not exceed a retail price of £ 99.  This survey has shownthat despite widespread awareness of potential product solutions may have not gainedtractions due to not meeting performances specifications that offer customers value for theirmoney.

EXISTING PRODUCT DISASSEMBLY

Introduction

This section of the report aims to investigate an existing product used for industrialapplications.  This is because these products are held to higher operational standards.

This will be done by utilising a methodical evaluation procedure to establish performancecriteria from which possible solutions may be set.

Aims

• Investigate an existing product
• Review the standards to which the product is held
• Analyse the performance of the products

Objectives

• Disassemble an existing product (see Appendix A)
• List performance specifications
• List bill of materials
• List industry standards that the product has met

Full face gas mask

This product disassembly will focus  on an unbranded full-face air-fed gas mask. The product is made up of an air  supply unit and a lightweight polymer gas mask for use in industrial  application such as spray painting. The product is designed to filter: vapours,  particles like dust, gases using a replaceable dust filter.

Bill of materials  

Facepiece-silicone rubber

Head harness- polymer fabric

Inhale valve- natural rubber

Exhale valve- silicone rubber

Gasket- silicone rubber

Filter body – polystyrene

Filter element- activated carbon,  polypropylene

Face shield- polycarbonate

Air Pump body -Abs

Air Pipe-polypropylene

Charger- Abs

Industrial standards:

Breathing resistance

Filter penetration (solids and liquids)

Total inward Leakage (TIL)

CO2 build-up

Flammability

Dust clogging

Field of vision

Mechanical strength and performance testing

Facepiece: EN136

Filter standards:

EN143:2000

EN141

EN371(6098)

EN14387:2004(6051,6055)

Flammability EN136(6700,6800,6900)

Visor-eye protections EN166:2001  protection against medium energy high-speed particles at 120meters per second

Performance specifications

Charging time:  3 hours

Working time: 7  hours

Charger  Voltage: 110 V / 220 V

Air supply flow  rate:

First speed: 62  L/min

Second speed:  74 L/min

Product performance analysis

Performance

The product does not require a  positive or negative pressure check since it is an air-fed full-face musk  this improves its convenience.

The product is considerably  lightweight is well distributed due to making waring the product comfortable,  at 1.4 kg but this weight would have to be reduced to make the product  suitable for cycling.

The air supply unit supplies between  62/74 Litres per minute. This is low    compared to the 3m Versa Flo  which can supply between 185/205 litres per minute.

Filtration the unit is capable of  filtering vapours, particles like dust, gases using a replaceable dust  filter.

Breathability- the due to a pressure  activated valves and relatively low airflow rates the unit   becomes uncomfortable after a couple of  hours, this is because the unit required the user to provide  positive/negative pressure to active the one-way valves to let air in

TIL- the total internal leakage is  fairly low, when the unit was tested I had a fair amount of beard hair, their  way still a good mechanical seal, this is because the unit has an out shroud  and an internal silicone gasket.

Service time- the product run for 3  hrs, this could have been improved by includes a battery with a bigger capacity,  furthermore, the impeller unit was far too heavy and could have been moulded  with thinner walls to improve rpm and a reduce the amount of torque required  to run it thus improving the service time.

Materials  

Gasket/Facepiece/ Exhale valve -  silicone rubber:

Silicone rubber  has excellent chemical resistance, making it suitable for use in a pm25 filter mask, which must remain  operational in environments which toxic particulates.

Silicone rubber  is a flame-retardant material.

Silicone rubber  has a high tensile strength at 9.8 KN/M and has very high fatigue strength  performance for making it suitable for use as a valve body.

Silicone rubber  is fairly costly at £5.25 per kilogram.

Head harness- nylon- the head harness  is made of nylon, one of the strongest textiles’ materials. Nylon is not  fireproof, considering the powered air filter may be used in environments  that may have fire risks. This is not a good material choice.

Inhale valve- natural rubber, rubber  has a low GPA of 1.7, making it suitable for the inhale valve because it does  not require as much negative pressure to activate when the user is breathing.

Air Pipe/Filter body Filter element-  polypropylene

The filter body will be in contact  with the chemical during the filtration process, polypropylene has good  chemical resistance and additionally is food safe.  Making it a suitable great material choice  for the filter body

Face shield- polycarbonate was  suitable material for the face shield because it's an extremely tough  material able to withstand high impact loads whilst still being lightweight  furthermore polycarbonate blocks UV rays which are a health risk.  

Air Pump body -Abs is a suitable  material because it has great resistance to chemical corrosion. Due to the  butadiene molecule Abs has a specific stiffness of 2.49 Mn.m/kg, suitable for  injection moulded housing body's that contain fixtures such as gear  housings.  (Ces, 2019)

Manufacturing

Using Injection moulding and Plastic  extrusion is the manufacture of the full-face mask component ensures that:

The manufacturing batches have good  dimensional accuracy and reduce plastic waste because runners and sprues can  be recycled back in the manufacturing process. Industrial pm25 filters have  long product life cycles in the market, using injection moulding leads to  low-cost par part, full maximising the advantages of economies of scale.

Price

The product costs £ 74.89,  considerably cheaper than the market average of £200. High-end industrial  filters can cost up £2000

Product  performance analysis

Safety

Listed below are the safety standards that the  product has to meet;

Breathing resistance

Filter penetration (solids and liquids)

Total inward Leakage (TIL)

CO2 build-up

Flammability

Dust clogging

Field of vision

Mechanical strength and performance testing

(BSI, 2019)

 CONCLUSION

Using an industrial pm25 filter was a good choice. Industrialfull-face masks are held to higher operational standard. Using these standardsas a basis for the product ensures good operational requirement standards willbe set for a possible product solution. Analysis of the product helped in guiding factors for consideration whendeveloping a product solution showed that the valve system responses need to bere-tuned to increase airflow rates, furthermore, the centrifugal pump needs tobe redesign to increase flow rates and the operational time of the productneeds to be increased by a conservable margin.‍

Secondary research

Secondary research analysis of the project brief will be usingqualitative and quantitative data sets, the analysis will be carried outmethodically, considering ethical considerations.

AIMS:

To establish theneed for a product orientated solution, based on tried and tested data.

Objectives

Quantitative:‍

To determine theglobal state of air quality  

To determine howmany people are affected by air pollution

To determine theairflow rates required for a sedentary individual or a highly active individual

Cycling Statistics

Physiological Ergonomics

Ergonomics

Safety Standards  

Swot analysis

The global state of air quality

Pre-industrial parts per million counts averaged at 280pm pre-1900s, current global pm countsare at 411 pm according to NOAA. The global city population is projected to grow to 70% by 2050, with increasingly lax laws and continued dependence on oil. Therefore, it’s imperative to determine how many cities are affected by prolonged smog, and bad air quality. This secondary research section will look into the 2019 report by the IHME (institute for health metrics and evaluation)to investigate:

What the current exposure rate is to air pollution and to determine health effects of air pollution  

Exposure rate is to air pollution.

Sources of PM25

Vehicle exhaust

Open fires

Ozone

Industrial Emissions

Dust particulates

Transport Emissions (planes, ships)

countries with the highest pm counts.

1. Pakistan

115.7

2. Qatar

92.4

3. Afghanistan

86

4. Bangladesh

83.3

5. Egypt

73

6. UAE

64

has become trendier, the last mile solution to combat climate change.  Bicycleownerships rates vary between 1-97% amongst households (journal of transport and health,2019), figure below shows bike ownership rates in percentage, for households in variouscountries;

Bike ownership availability percentage:

Figure 5

Above illustrates the bike ownership percentage. The figure is colour coded with bikeavailability percentage on the bottom left.  80% of bikes are owned by Scandinaviancountries.  No data is available for countries coded in white. According to statistical datacollected by the UN, the total number of bicycles comes to 2 billion globally. Poorinfrastructure and safety for cyclists, lead the Uk to have lower bicycle ownership rate at40%.  China currently has 500 million bicycles, despite china only having 60% bikeownership rate.

Minimum wage statistics

Figure 4

Figure 4 above shows the minimum wages for 150 countries. Looking at minimum wagestatistics will enable this research study to put together a comprehensive pricing strategythat suits the largest market segments.

Secondary research- global state of air quality- summary.

Majority of people affected by pm25 particles reside on the eastern side of the global.Current global carbon dioxide particulate counts stand at 411 parts per million according toNOAA. The global city population is projected to grow to 70% by 2050. Developing andmiddle-income countries are affected considerably more. The only anomalies beingcountries with a high proportion of desert or semi- arid ecology and china due aggressivelyimplemented economic growth strategies leading to excessive air pollution.  Top 20countries with the highest pm25 countries are all developing countries. Air pollution is the4th largest cause of the loss of life expectancy. Chinas current bicycle census shows thatthe country has approximately half a billion bicycles with Shanghai accounting for 9,43million bicycles. Market research shows that on the premise of secondary researchsummary, that there is a big global market. And product needs exist.

Swot analysis

Aim

Provide comparative analysis of market research with regards to possible product solutions.

Table 3: Swotanalysis

Swot analysis conclusion

Market opportunity exists, there are currently 800 million cyclists globally.  But People arenot willing to pay more than £99 in the United Kingdom for a proposed solution. The price ofwhich will be much lower when adjusted for inflation. This will limit the number of featuresthat the product can have.  Price based feature segmentation will have to be used.Increasing development and product rollout time.  By that time Competitors may saturate themarket with similar devices dropping the price.

Physiological ergonomics

• The average adult inhales and exhales approximately 8-12 litres of air per minute.
• During heavy exercise, the average person will breathe in 100 litres of air per minute
• On average a person takes in 15-18 breathes per minute.
• During heavy exercise, an elite athlete will breathe in 270 litres of air per minute

tuing heavy excersize nominal values for pulmonary ventilation during rest, moderate and vigorous exercise.  To support the bodies oxygen needs during heavy exercise thenominal breathing rate has to increase by an order of magnitude of five.

PM25 Filter masks

People prefer not to wear respirators because they create breathing discomfort. Respiratorscreate breathing resistance which in turn lead to fatigue of the respiratory system. Pm25filters with inhalation and exhalation valves reduce breathing resistance by 50% (yang,2017).

Ergonomics

Bike helmet sizes:

Table 7

Helmet design and safety standards

Bicycle helmet standards:

• Helmets must not irritate the wearer`s skin.
• The helmets materials must not be susceptible to degradation by the wearer`s sweat, hairor any skin products used by the wearer.
• The helmet must meet state impact requirements.  Absorbing kinetic energy in a widerange of scenarios.
• The helmets harness must be able to be secured to a wide range of wearers heads.
• The helmet must cover critical areas of the wearers head, which may otherwise be subjectto impact collisions.
• The helmet must not restrict the vision of a wearer.

European safety standards; EN1078and EN1080

Figure 7

EN1078/1080 is bicycle safety standards introduced by the European Committee forstandardisation (CEN) in 1997. (Connor,2016). Every helmet test can be described as anexchange of momentum between a head form helmet liner/shell and a surface.(Connor,2016) due to logistical constraints helmet test are designed to test for fail/passcriteria in extreme adverse scenarios, such as high-speed impact with hard surfaces suchas asphalt (Meng,2016).

Impact tests: this test involves flat and kerbstone as illustrated in figure 7 which shows thepossible collision scenarios that may need to be tested. The flat stone test involves acollision scenario where the head form and helmet impact the flat at 90 degrees at a velocityof (5.42/4.57) m/s from a height of 1.5 - 1.06 meters. (B

Retention system strength test: this test certifies that the helmet harness with not break orelongate more than 35mm when subjected to an inertial force of 24 j created by a fallingmass of 10 kg from a height of 600 mm.  EN1080 states that in the event of a persistentforce of 90N but less than 160N the harness buckle must release.  This safety specificationis geared towards prevention of strangulation for helmets designed for children.  The figurebelow illustrates the safety test for the helmet harness.

Figure 8

Table 4:Cycling helmetstandard testpass/failcriteria.

Conclusion

Helmet standards test criteria for bicycles does not reflect real-world conditions.  Helmettest criteria could be further improved by de-restricting helmet impacts test points from90degree tangential angles to other possible offset angles.  Furthermore, helmet regulationsfor bicycle need to enforce the use of full-face helmets.  A substantial number of impactscenarios happen below the referenchelmet half-face helmets leaving thelower jaw exposed to possible impact.

Product design specification

This product design specification shows the product requirement goals and aims.  Theproduct requirements are list in chronological order, starting with the most importrequirements.

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Major project- REQUIREMENTS

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