Mid March 2020, ER Dr. James V. en his team reached out to Voxdale with the urgent question to help them create an easily-scalable solution to provide oxygen to Covid-19 patients. The second objective was to limit the use of intensive care rooms and find solutions that could be used in other (temporary) buildings or ambulances.
Their idea was inspired by recent news items featuring a newly designed adaptor for Decathlon’s snorkeling masks by Yanko Design. But with their idea, they aimed to combine the Aria snorkeling mask from the Ocean Reef brand with a venturi system (a virtual valve that ensures dynamic alveolar ventilation and that is installed in any standard hospital room) and an Hepa filter to make sure the exhaled particles would not contaminate the patient’s surroundings. To do so, he needed some help to design and produce an adaptor.
Approach
Just a couple of hours after a quick brainstorm we started drafting. “One night of no sleep” later the file was ready to be 3D-printed at our Voxdale fab-lab and half a day later we ran the first tests and were able to adjust the design before testing in the hospital and on a first Covid-19 patient. Amongst the tests, we also performed some initial CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations to make sure enough oxygen flow reached the patient through this adaptor.
This has been an emergency effort triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Although generated in a design control process, the result has not been verified or validated and is no medical device at this point in time. Therefore, precautions should be taken into account when printing and using it. We claim no IP on it and allow everybody to use, modify or improve it. Voxdale cannot be held responsible for quality and use of this interface part.
The result
We have designed a 3D-printable adaptor for the “Ocean Reef Aria” snorkeling mask so that it can be transformed to an oxygen delivery device. It can be used in an ordinary hospital room and in any standard ambulance.
This new setup prevents exhaled particles from contaminating the room or ambulance and the surroundings of the patient. No need to put the patient in an induced coma and to use a ventilator at this stage.
Files can be downloaded on these 3D-print community platforrms: Cults, Myminifactory, Thingiverse, Prusa Printers
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