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Virginia Tech engineering students design novel respirator

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Category: research Video duration: Virginia Tech engineering students design novel respirator
Engineering graduate students from the DREAMS and FRITH labs design and produce a novel respirator
My name is Janet girl. I'm a graduate student in dreams Lab and we're working on essentially N95 replacement respire is the idea behind this product, is we wanted something that was rapidly scalable. It's only got we can also rapidly prototype and iterate, compiles. Danielle category as a service is single impermeable sheet and arguing is warming it up slightly so it gets a little Bible. And when we pull or the form and pull vacuum is just shaping or not poking holes in it. We're not doing anything else. So we can be relatively competent that we don't have those leak past that could lead particles. Our goal is to be prepared. So any eventuality that there is a critical shortage of masks around and visited we respirate, be able to fill that need already, have done all the development work required to make sure that not only are they producing mask and respirators, like they shed, they actually perform well. Start out with me and actually three-dimensional CAD model that was created by ourselves. And then we take that model and then create some sort of more thermal form the masks around. We then take these mold and put them in a thermal farming machine. So what we next need to do is actually take that mask and cut it out. Once we actually cut out the classic shape, the mass to be then essentially have a 3D printed and insert that pushes inside of it and presses against the filter. Farms and airtight seal between the wall of that mask and the filter. And then we have a silicone moulded gasket that goes around the face. It actually produces an airtight seal between your face mask as well. The entire process, we're expected to be around five to 10 minutes per customer may actually get a tonic. Scale production. At the end of the day, it's been truly incredible to see the response, not just from Virginia Tech students, staff, faculty, but also the community at large at our hospital staff. And this has been a truly collaborative effort and it's honestly inspiring to see.