秘密研究所

Airbus, South Team Up on Medical Masks

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Posted on April 20, 2020

Thomas Becnel

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Engineers from Airbus and faculty from the 秘密研究所 are working with healthcare workers at during the coronavirus pandemic to produce hundreds of reusable face masks for providers in clinics and hospitals.

One of the team members is John Ding, who earned a master鈥檚 degree in business administration from South and is an aircraft engineer at Airbus.

鈥淎t Airbus, we do a lot of 3D printing, we try all kinds of stuff,鈥� Ding said. 鈥淎nd we鈥檇 seen on the news that people around the country were using printers to make masks. We knew we wanted to do something, but we didn鈥檛 know where, so I decided to reach out to the University.鈥�

The first call went to Dr. Robert Cloutier, who teaches systems engineering classes for Airbus employees. The next step was a conference call with Dr. Matthew Reichert, who uses 3D printing in his chemistry research lab, and Lynne Chronister, vice president for research and economic development at South.

The COVID-19 response soon reached Dr. Benjamin Estrada, an infectious disease specialist at USA Health. Instead of face shields, which was the initial idea, he suggested making what鈥檚 called a 鈥淢ontana mask,鈥� which has a replaceable filter and a hard nylon shell that can be washed and reused.

Within just a few weeks, the Mobile Airbus engineers should be able to print 500 masks with adjustable straps. The Airbus employees work at the company鈥檚 engineering and assembly centers at Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley.

鈥淜udos to Airbus,鈥� said Estrada, who鈥檚 also a professor and assistant dean at South鈥檚 College of Medicine. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e done a great job for us. This will definitely help our healthcare workers be better protected.鈥�

Nick Simpson, an Airbus project leader, was one of many who joined the mask-making project.

鈥淚鈥檓 excited to be helping the local medical community using the skills I and other team members normally use for making things fly,鈥� Simpson said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e had some very clever people working on this, and we are gratified to help our local medical teams where and when it鈥檚 most needed.鈥�

Through aggressive conservation, USA Health has not faced the extreme shortages of personal protective equipment seen in some parts of the country, Estrada said, but administrators are concerned about maintaining stockpiles at University Hospital, Children鈥檚 & Women鈥檚 Hospital, Mitchell Cancer Institute and USA Health clinics.  

The Airbus masks will not replace N95 respirator masks, which have run short at hospitals across the country. They do, however, meet requirements from the National Institutes of Health, and will provide an alternative to surgical masks.

鈥淔or the large majority of patient contact, we use standard surgical masks, and these are an excellent backup,鈥� Estrada said. 鈥淭he advantage is that they can be re-used, so you鈥檙e extending the life of the masks. It seems to be a very clever design. And they use a rubber window seal, so air doesn鈥檛 escape, and it鈥檚 actually a better seal than with a typical mask.鈥�

In the chemistry department at South, Reichert is using a few 3D printers to produce tension-relief bands for the Airbus masks as well as for N95 and surgical masks. It takes about two-and-a-half hours for a printer to produce nine adjustable straps. They are also being printed at Mobile Makerspace by Ricky Green, an information technology instructor in South鈥檚 School of Computing.

At Airbus, meanwhile, there are seven 3D printers producing the larger nylon mask pieces, which take about five hours to complete. Finally, filters and bands are attached to complete the masks.

The division of labor was worked out in about a week.

鈥淚t was kind of serendipitous,鈥� Reichert said. 鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 sure what the Airbus capabilities were for 3D printing, and then they were reaching out to us. If John hadn鈥檛 had that connection to South, it would have taken a lot longer to get going.鈥�

Ding, the Airbus engineer with the MBA from South, said many of his colleagues and co-workers volunteered to work on the project. On Friday, the Airbus and University teams working on the project made the first delivery to Estrada鈥檚 office at the Strada Patient Care Center in Midtown.

鈥淲e feel pretty good about the whole project,鈥� Ding said. 鈥淭he whole team is pretty engaged at this time.鈥�

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