Covid-19: Meeting the challenges through Engineering

Hi all,


A call has come out for volunteers providing engineering support for the new field hospitals if you have any suitable contacts to forward on to:
https://www.raeng.org.uk/policy/engineering-response-to-covid-19/active-government-calls

This post relates to the autumn rather than right now. IET's Healthcare Technologies Community has been planning a International Conference in Sept 2020 on "Appropriate Healthcare Technologies for Low Resource Settings".AHT2020. In view of the COVID-19 pandemic we have changed from holding a physical event to a digital/on-line event or series of events. As one of the themes we are considering focusing on how low-cost appropriate healthcare technologies can help in managing and mitigating outbreaks of infectious diseases, particularly in low resources settings where they may have limited healthcare infrastructure. If you are interested in this you can contact Gemma Hadley, Healthcare Technologies Community Manager or me, Len Cornish, at LenCornish@aol.com. Co-Chair AHT2020. Take care and keep safe.

Getting the impression standardised components would help and possibly issues with electronics/ control systems.  Just wonder if something like a Rasberry Pi could be utilised - could be sourced from the public at volume if needed.

The first in a series of IET.TV videos on COVID-19 is now available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4oIh0Xhkvk

The world is currently gripped in a pandemic. Covid-19 is tearing through our society and the NHS is struggling to cope. The UK government has called for British manufacturers to start producing parts for ventilators so that hospitals have the right equipment for the wave of coronavirus patients they are facing. Can manufactures step up to the challenge? Although the effects of Covid-19 are fairly mild for most people, unfortunately for a small number, the effects can be brutal, or even deadly. In the worst case, the coronavirus causes such difficulty with breathing that those suffering may need assistance from a ventilator just to stay alive. With the transmission of covid-19 being so high, the NHS does not have enough equipment to handle this crisis. On 15th March 2020, the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, announced his intentions to ask UK manufacturers, where possible, to start producing parts for ventilators. Many manufacturers are keen to help where they can, but switching production to these parts that they have never built before, comes with a unique set of challengers. Since the government's call for companies to help manufacture new ventilators, a number of big name engineering companies have featured in the UK’s press. The "VentilatorChallengeUK" consortium includes big name companies such as Airbus, Ford, Rolls-Royce and Siemens, and are reported to have received orders for more than 10,000 ventilators from the government, MHRA approval pending. Production is due to begin next week. VO: But with the big names having taken the headlines, are the UK Government missing a trick by not including the expertise of smaller, perhaps more agile engineering companies? Engineers, anaesthetists and surgeons from the University of Oxford and King’s College London are building and testing prototypes that can be manufactured using techniques and tools available in well-equipped universities and SME workshops. The design aims to exploit off-the-shelf components and equipment in a bid to achieve regulatory approval of an opensource design. Once this has been achieved, the approach could unlock potential for a new kind of distributed manufacturing effort. But before SME’s can begin production of ventilators on any scale, there are a number of obstacles that will need to be addressed. With a large number of SME’s across the UK wanting to help during the current crisis, be it through the agile nature of their manufacturing techniques or helping through a community led approach with their local hospitals and health services, the question remains… Will the UK be able to make the most of our SME’s eagerness and expertise or could the oversight of these engineers lead to a slower response time... only time will tell!

Please ... Get the Ventilator Specifications and Drawings on-line! Engineers who do not have medical experience cannot see how their skills and abilities might apply ... Without seeing what a machine looks like inside, and without understanding the specification it has to meet. It would also be very useful for them to know which parts have supply problems. Engineering is not one discipline, it is many!

Hi Guys,


I was on a LinkedIn thread and asked to partake in this conversation, it's been a very long time since I entered these walls. lol...


I've skimmed the above discussion and please forgive me if I have missed some points already discussed. It feels like there are some basic issues that are going unaddressed, but have largely been touched upon.


Organisation:

This seems to be the primary thread, and most the others are pretty short. A selection of core teams to individual threads under a central contact for each subject would seem a sensible option, if we have multiple projects discussed on one thread it's just going to degenerate into a melee. The vectors of need must be isolated, and folks subscribe to their chosen direction. There have been some sensible suggestions of strategic direction above.


Fundamentally:

Funding. I know it's not the virtue signal anyone wants to send, but personally I'm a very small micro consultancy and I'm going to struggle to stay in business like many others. So if folks are to dedicate their professional billed time to a national effort, they need to know who is paying the food bills. It's ok for the University Academics and the large company management classes, but your average engineer needs approval to spend their time on a "skunk works" project, and the most experienced experts in the country, the consultants... have no large finances to fall back on.


Reinventing the wheel:

Whatever we do here, needs to be done on a tight timeline. It needs to protect peoples lives, and it needs to be as risk averse as possible. I'm an embedded systems engineer, I specialise in RT software development. In this situation the LAST thing I would want to do is write new code. Code requires rigour, inspection, validation, verification, etc. We don't have time. There are products out there, they have undertaken rigorous qualification processes. The software has been locked down for years. The project should be to construct a platform from common industrial parts that can be driven by that existing pre-qualified software. So int he first instance we would need the Software Lead and Hardware Lead of the original company on the phone to tell us the hidden requirements of the platform. What timing issues are in the defect list, do we have the full Mod status list, can we trust the Gerbers or are they subject to assembly modification changes. If they can be trusted, we need to know are all the BOM parts available, if not what isn't and how can we create a mod to use parts that Farnell have in ample stock. At that point we hit the go button with a large "at risk" buy of 1000 boards, populated from two UK suppliers on Ultra urgent. This allows us to leverage everything WE HAVE. The software need not change, we don't need a new processor unless the one in use is obsolete, and if it is we need either lifetime stock form the supplier, or we need the nearest possible alternative and ONLY THEN do we consider software changes and ideally done by the original team in the original build environment.


Our priority HAS to be to LEVERAGE existing tech. Lego brick style.



Repurposing:

Who remembers M*A*S*H ? Klinger. No I am not suggesting you all don womens clothing and take up guard duty. He could source kit form anywhere. It's a military tradition. Make do and mend. We need to use stuff nobody would think of, leverage in depth industry knowledge of existing processes.


I noted some folks are looking for specific Stainless Steel Sheet for medical kit, well who else uses it? Industrial Kitchen fitters maybe?


Oxygen, who uses O2 in large amounts? Well maybe folks like the Sewage Industry who use it to encourage bacterial grown in the sewage processing. So maybe those O2 pumps can be repurposed by the use of a damn great tank, that any number of LPG suppliers nationally could potentially provide. what is needed from us, is any modification needed to the bottles to make it safe. To find the O2 sources. Who uses oxyacetyline these days, ship yards, rig breakers. They ain't working.... they don't need the O2.


High accuracy variable gas valves... Something to squeeze and release a length of rubber fuel pipe?


I don't mean to be bullish, but there is a quite focused requirement here to hit key targets. It's not really an innovation fiesta and I'm worried that's what it's being billed as. It's an applied engineering brain puzzle, Apollo 13. MacGyver style. Not "here's my new unproven controller with a flywheel delay loop to support your breathing... oh yeah, that printf... sorry!"....


Rob Lowe CEng MIET

Creative Impulse Ltd

Hi Ian, I agree we need to do something that can make a big difference. I came up with this simple idea for a face mask that can be made by the the general public, after speaking with some health professionals they agree it could could have a significant impact. Ideally the filter should be made of polypropylene but I doubt most people have access to it. It may also be very useful for front line workers. Surely it is better to prevent rather than cure?

please look at my video and pass on to anyone who can get this going. Every day counts.

 

https://youtu.be/4bSsU-7Fees


thanks


John Parsons FIET

Face Masks:


Alternatively: How do we sterilise the ones we have? A client of mine has done some research into this for an Australian hospital. The typical face mask filters by use of elecrostatics, it uses the feild to capture the virus in the thin filter. This is the reason they have a 4hr life, as you breathe you pull the virus load through the filter. UV doesn't penetrate the filter, so doesn't sterilise fully, same with Ozone. Washing, removes the chemicals and static provision elements of the mask, so leaves it defenceless. The method he prescribed, and it requires clinical evaluation...  was to subject the mask to 130 C for 3 minutes. That was hot enough to kill anything in the mask, not hot enough to damage the mask, and would not damage the specialist elements in the mask material. That works for that type of mask... the Koreans, apparently added to this that each practitioner should bag their own masks and use those again. 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0186217



If we as a technical specialist group  could work out how to reuse the millions of masks we have... That is a leap forward.

Good point. Has this ref any validity? https://consteril.com/covid-19-pandemic-disinfection-and-sterilization-of-face-masks-for-viruses/.


This claims the simple "single use" "mask is not cleanable but that two more complex masks are.


Does anyone know if a microwave would directly neutralise COVID19 (or other ) viruses held in fabric / plastic mask filters?


The reference above mentions microwaves in terms of generating heat from a water bath, on which a mask is placed.


If there was a clinically approved method it could be useful.

Hi Kenneth,


 My concern would be a microwave would destroy the static electric deposits that filter the viral load in the ones I mentioned. I think you'd need specialist knowledge of the mechanisms used to evaluate that with microwaves.


Regarding the cleaning of other types of mask and other PPE, I see no reason why that shouldn't be appropriate. If it were microwave proof, i.e. not going to shrivel up like a crisp packet... and didn't contain metallic hinge pins. Then in theory it should kill anything biological in pretty short order. That might offer an option for more delicate materials, the static based masks are quite solidly constructed from my brief reading. That's half the problem, you have to penetrate the mask to sterilise it at depth. However, something lighter and less solid, with no EM involvement should be suitable for a microwave. The question will be whether the Covid is heated due to it's own molecular construct/carrier construct being excited by the RF, or whether it is heated by the material it's on being heated. If the material has to reach high temperatures, that could be a problem. If the Covid itself is heated by the RF, then you could blast it quite quickly with an industrial microwave such as you'd probably find in most hospital kitchens.


Of course, we are in a hospital... we have X-ray generators! Could these be (ab)used?

I think at this point we need the input of an RF expert with biological expert.


Cheers


Rob

Kenneth Hattersley:

Good point. Has this ref any validity? https://consteril.com/covid-19-pandemic-disinfection-and-sterilization-of-face-masks-for-viruses/.


This claims the simple "single use" "mask is not cleanable but that two more complex masks are.


Does anyone know if a microwave would directly neutralise COVID19 (or other ) viruses held in fabric / plastic mask filters?


The reference above mentions microwaves in terms of generating heat from a water bath, on which a mask is placed.


If there was a clinically approved method it could be useful.