As a solution to the increasing number of COVID-19 patients who require ventilator-related care, James Guest, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering (CaSE) and associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Additive Manufacturing and Architected Materials, is aiding in the development of a 3D-printed ventilator splitter system designed to allow a single ventilator to treat multiple patients.
Guest and his students were already leveraging their experience in the areas of additive manufacturing and materials design on a project related to the design of personal protective equipment when Guest was approached by Sung Hoon Kang, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, to aid with the ventilator system project. The idea for a split ventilator system originated with Julie Caffrey, an assistant professor in the School of Medicine, who reached out to Helen Xun, a Hopkins medical student who had been conducting research in Kang’s lab.
“This is a fabulous example of a truly multidisciplinary collaborative team. I’m thrilled to give students the opportunity both to work beyond the boundaries of traditional civil engineering and to aid in finding solutions to one of society’s grand challenges,” says Guest.
Guest and his group are serving as the technical lead for a team composed of civil, mechanical, and biomedical engineers. Their goal is to design components in the ventilation splitter system that meet functionality requirements, while ensuring they can be 3D printed across a variety of printing platforms.