In March 2020, the world was thrown into a frenzy. A pandemic was raging through countries throughout the world and the healthcare system was put to the test. A couple months into the pandemic, the hospital's procurement team was starting to struggle to find consistent supply of masks, particularly N95 masks. The procurement director mentioned he saw an article online regarding mask alternatives being produced by 3D printers. The go ahead was given to buy a 3D printer and begin investigating the feasibility of the mask alternatives. 

The design consisted of a primary mask housing that was able to receive a disposable N95 filter insert. We went through several design iterations before the final design was printed and given to our Director of Emergency Preparedness. A gasket was put on the rim of the mask for a better seal, they were then fit tested. The fit test was a standard procedure for any employee wearing a regular N95 mask. The test consists of a hood being placed over the examinee while wearing the mask, and a potent odor was injected into the hood, if the examinee could not smell anything it was deemed to be a successful fit. The 3D printed masks passed the fit test and were deemed a success. 

There were several problems that were encountered when trying to scale the production of masks. A single mask printed on the original 3D printer (pictured below) took over 6 hours to print. To counter this, two large workspace 3D printers were purchased by the hospital. With these new printers we were able to print 9 masks at a time in around 14 hours, with two of these printers running we were able to print 18 masks every 14 hours reducing the time per mask by over 450%.  We made one batch of 18 masks which were distributed to the engineering team for use testing.

Another issue was the N95 insert. Up to this point, we were cutting a single N95 Mask into 3 pieces that could fit into the mask. This reduced the burn rate of N95 masks but was unsustainable at scale. We tried to find suppliers of the N95 material, but were unable to find a supplier.  

The final nail in the 3D printed masks was the fact that towards the end of 2020 and going into 2021, mask supply began to become more consistent, rendering the masks economically impractical. 

Although the masks were never put into full utilization, we used this project in our Pandemic Response Report that was submitted to the State of California. This was my introduction to 3D printing and gave me valuable skills that I would use in my personal life for future projects.