University faculty, students design PPE, ventilators amid COVID-19 pandemic

Amid the global pandemic, a lot of the news that’s been flooding my inbox is highlighting how people are helping.

Aerospace engineering students, students on high school robotics teams, faculty mechanical engineers, and many more are showing the collaboration among disciplines and communities to develop personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical equipment.

Georgia Tech also launched a rapid-response website to address any supply chain challenges. 

Designing ventilator parts, face shields

© Binghamton University, State University of New York | https://www.binghamton.edu

Engineers at Binghamton University, State University of New York are stepping up on several fronts to help regional healthcare providers deal with the coronavirus pandemic, including designing ventilator parts and face shields.

Faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering have completed a prototype of an N95-like mask using a 3M electrostatically charged filter that is capable of capturing viruses, and they also have a design for sterilizing N95 masks using ultraviolet light.

Fuda Ning and Jia Deng, both assistant professors in the Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, are working with local hospitals to design and 3D-print ventilator adapters that will allow more than one patient per machine if necessary. They are working on this project with Scott Schiffres, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Click here to read more about the 3DP work to help product PPE.

DIY medical devices, protective gear

A research team from universities on two continents is racing to develop do-it-yourself healthcare gear that can be assembled where it’s needed from components available locally. Uusing 3D-printed parts, plastic-lined tablecloths intended for birthday parties, laser-cut gears, and similar substitutions, team members figure they have about two weeks to get the designs right and share them with anyone who can help with the needs.

“We’re trying to figure out how to get these things to scale in the time we have,” says Shannon Yee, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering who’s working on the ventilator issue with a half-dozen colleagues at Georgia Tech and other universities. “We are looking at producing things very quickly and this is where having contacts with mature manufacturing sources is going to help.”

The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory and Georgia Tech serves as a bridge between healthcare needs and the broad technical know-how at Georgia Tech, and Georgia Tech researchers are talking regularly with hospital systems to discuss their needs. So far, hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, face shields, respirator masks, and ventilators have been identified as critical needs. Using resources of the Flowers Invention Studio – such as 3D printing – the group has already produced 1,000 face shields and is preparing to fabricate thousands more in the form of kits that hospitals can assemble.

The team is launching a website to both quantify the needs for face shields and solicit supplies of materials. Because the world’s supply chains are unable to ship conventional PPE components, they are looking for alternatives that may not now be part of that production.

While the face shield is the most mature project the team is developing, researchers are also looking at other needs of the medical community. Among them are ventilators, disinfecting wipes, and respirators.

Click here to read more about the PPE production.

Missouri S&T lends hand to Phelps Health medical system

© Tom Wagner/Missouri S&T | website.com

When representatives from Phelps Health, anticipating a shortage of protective masks due to the coronavirus outbreak, needed help, students, faculty and staff at Missouri S&T answered by harnessing the power of technology and ingenuity.

Campus was abnormally quiet Saturday and Sunday, March 21-22, 2020, not only because it was the weekend before spring break but also because, due to the coronavirus outbreak, most students had moved out for the semester and a majority of faculty and staff prepared to work remotely. But 3D printers in a couple of buildings on campus were humming away, fabricating prototype masks and face shield brackets.

Inside the Kummer Student Design Center, where S&T students usually work on rockets, solar cars, Mars rovers, and other projects, a few students, faculty and staff outfitted one room Saturday with a dozen 3D printers to produce prototypes for Phelps Health’s physicians, nurses and other medical workers.

Across campus, students at Missouri S&T’s Makerspace were using their 3D printers to fabricate prototypes of the face shield brackets. The university enlisted more printers for the cause Sunday.

Burton asked Missouri S&T Chancellor Mohammad Dehghani if it was possible to harness the university’s 3-D printing capabilities to aid in the effort. Dehghani directed others across campus to do what they could to assist.

Click her to read more about the printer farm they are developing to produce 24 hours a day.