No abstract

A year after the first cases, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to put immense pressure on healthcare systems worldwide. With supply chains broken, the only opportunity for hospitals was to turn to unconventional solutions to overcome medical equipment shortages in the shortest possible time. This paper describes the methodology that allows the preparation of medical equipment to be additionally manufactured in keeping with medical requirements. The proposed method focuses on cytotoxicity tests against HaCaT, L929, A549 cell lines, and the assessment of potential antimicrobial properties of materials. The application of the proposed method is shown by the example of an adapter that connects a full mask with widely available DAR filters. The prototyping and fabrication of adapters were conducted with the fused deposition modelling (FDM) and selective laser sintering (SLS) technologies. The adapters increased the number of masks available to medical personnel, and by the same token, ensured the continuity of their work.

Additive manufacturing technology-Electron Beam Melting (EBM) is very promising for providing components with bulk density and high material performance, comparable to wrought material. However fatigue loadings are crucial for application in aerospace and automotive industries. Therefore it is necessary to predict the moment of the crack initiation and find the defect that acts as a stress concentrator within the considered element. The solution described in this paper is passive thermography method conducted during fatigue test of Ti6Al4V specimens as to measure temperature rise during the test. In order to achieve this objective, a thermal imaging system was proposed.