Additive manufacturing and the COVID-19 challenges: An in-depth study

Abstract

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) rapidly achieved global pandemic status. The pandemic created huge demand for relevant medical and personal protective equipment (PPE) and put unprecedented pressure on the healthcare system within a very short span of time. Moreover, the supply chain system faced extreme disruption as a result of the frequent and severe lockdowns across the globe. In such a situation, additive manufacturing (AM) becomes a supplementary manufacturing process to meet the explosive demands and to ease the health disaster worldwide. Providing the extensive design customization, a rapid manufacturing route, eliminating lengthy assembly lines and ensuring low manufacturing lead times, the AM route could plug the immediate supply chain gap, whilst mass production routes restarted again. The AM community joined the fight against COVID-19 by producing components for medical equipment such as ventilators, nasopharyngeal swabs and PPE such as face masks and face shields. The aim of this article is to systematically summarize and to critically analyze all major efforts put forward by the AM industry, academics, researchers, users, and individuals. A step-by-step account is given summarizing all major additively manufactured products that were designed, invented, used, and produced during the pandemic in addition to highlighting some of the potential challenges. Such a review will become a historical document for the future as well as a stimulus for the next generation AM community.

3D/4D Printing of Polymers: Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), and Stereolithography (SLA)

“…3D printing or additive manufacturing (AM) is a digital manufacturing process, in which the materials are added layer by layer to create 3D objects directly from the computer-aided design (CAD) models [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. 3D printing has gained significant popularity in the last two decades due to a number of appealing advantages such as the limitless design freedom and capability to produce low cost and multifunctional objects with highly delicate/complex structures in a short period of time [ 9 ].…”

Facemasks: A Looming Microplastic Crisis

“…Furthermore, they suggested that polypropylene fibers may be released to the environment due to the mechanical stresses induced by water bodies. Tareq et al [ 5 ] argued that 3D-printed facemasks may solve the solid waste crisis associated with the single use facemasks because most of the 3D-printed facemasks were made from thermoplastic polymers that can be recycled. However, after several recycling cycles, these 3D printed masks will become solid waste that can release microplastic fibers to the environment.…”

Exploring the Role of Manufacturing Parameters on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) Using PETG

“…For the computation of deformation in a structure, we need to model the material's response by means of a constitutive equation, also called the material model. Since additive manufacturing is using a layer-by-layer technique, there is an added inner structure related material response [31][32][33][34]. Finite element method (FEM) is the standard approach in solid bodies for computing structural response under mechanical loading.…”