Preliminary Results on the Online Lessons of IDPE Department of University of West Attica 2019-2020

During the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 in Greece that coincided with the spring semester of the year 2020, conventional face-to-face lessons presented a threat to public health. As a result, house confinement measures were taken. Universities, due to their offering either directly or via their lifelong education centers, were partially prepared to offer distant learning solutions for their students during the pandemic. The lessons, in the general case, were delivered in an ad hoc manner utilizing teachers' personal experiences and preferences creating some pressure on existing infrastructures. In the case of the Department of Industrial Design & Production Engineering at the University of West Attica, things were more organized than in the general case: there was a, more or less, uniform practice of preferring synchronous lessons and some monitoring was planned in order to evaluate the application for future reference. While data collected in the process are still going through statistical analysis there are some preliminary results that can be reported here.

Advanced Manufacturing Design of an Emergency Mechanical Ventilator via 3D Printing - Effective Crisis Response

Nowadays, there is a market need that is pushing manufacturers to support more sustainable product designs regardless of any crisis. Two important lessons that society inferred from the COVID-19 pandemic are that the industry needs an improved collaboration efficiency that can handle such emergencies and improve its resource conservation to avoid having shortages. Additive manufacturing technologies use 3D object scanners to direct hardware to deposit material, layer upon layer, in precise geometric shapes, and are positioned to provide a disruptive transformation in how products are designed and manufactured. They can provide for the planet in fighting against crisis from a materials and applications perspective. In this context, the optimization and production of emergency ventilators in health systems were investigated with plans for 3D printing received from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. An evaluation of the printability of CAD files and a partial redesign to limit dimensional variability, acceptable surface finish, and a more efficient printing process were performed. Six parts of the design were redesigned to make printing easier, faster, and less expensive. In the case of the O2 inlet attachment, the necessary supports were difficult to remove due to the part's geometry, leading to redesign. The modulator top and bottom part, the patient tee, the manometer body, and the pop-off valve cap were also redesigned in order to avoid dimensional variability and possible rough surfaces. Metallic and thermoplastic composite ventilators were produced and then tested in real operating conditions, such as in a hospital setting with a realistic oxygen supply. The preliminary findings are promising compared to the initial design, both in terms of construction quality and performance such as exhalation rate adjustment and emergency valve operation. Also, a combination of manufacturing technologies was evaluated. The modifications allowed optimal casting (injection molding) of the parts and therefore faster production, instead of printing each part, when high output is required.

Early Warning Systems for COVID-19 Infections Based on Low-Cost Indoor Air-Quality Sensors and LPWANs.

During the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc in many areas of the world, as the infection spreads through person-to-person contact. Transmission and prognosis, once infected, are potentially influenced by many factors, including indoor air pollution. Particulate Matter (PM) is a complex mixture of solid and/or liquid particles suspended in the air that can vary in size, shape, and composition and recent scientific work correlate this index with a considerable risk of COVID-19 infections. Early Warning Systems (EWS) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have given rise to the development of Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) based on sensors, which measure PM levels and monitor In-door Air pollution Quality (IAQ) in real-time. This article proposes an open-source platform architecture and presents the development of a Long Range (LoRa) based sensor network for IAQ and PM measurement. A few air quality sensors were tested, a network platform was implemented after simulating setup topologies, emphasizing feasible low-cost open platform architecture.

Correction to: Manufacturing Zero-Waste COVID-19 Personal Protection Equipment: a Case Study of Utilizing 3D Printing while Employing Waste Material Recycling.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s43615-021-00047-8.].

Manufacturing Zero-Waste COVID-19 Personal Protection Equipment: a Case Study of Utilizing 3D Printing While Employing Waste Material Recycling.

COVID-19 pandemic outbreak dictated the extensive use of personal protective equipment (PPE) by the majority of the population and mostly by frontline professionals. This need triggered a sudden demand that led to a global shortage of available PPEs threatening to have an immense contribution to the virus contamination spread. In these conditions, the need for a local, flexible, and rapid manufacturing method that would be able to cope with the increased demand for PPE fabrication arose. 3D printing proved to be such a manufacturing technique since its working principles make it an ideal technology for local, decentralized production of PPEs meeting the local demands. While considered to be more environmentally friendly than conventional fabrication techniques and aligning well with the principles of sustainability and circular economy, 3D printing can produce waste as the result of potential failed prints and material used for the fabrication of support structures. This paper describes the case of utilizing pre-existing FDM 3D printing equipment in an academic facility for the production of PPEs (face shields) and their distribution according to local demands. The plastic wastes produced were forwarded to a recycling process that led to their conversion to 3D filament that would be returned to the academic facility as raw material for future 3D printing operations. The followed procedure minimized 3D printing waste and led to a zero-waste fabrication case that was initiated in a pandemic for a greater-good cause (production of COVID-19 fighting PPEs) while assimilating the values of sustainability and circular economy.