In the global fight against a pandemic that currently shows signs of abating, protecting those on the frontline is vitally important.
With the help of the Ansys Startup Program, UK-based EDRMedeso customer, ActiveCell, is using simulation technology to speed up the process of designing ‘custom-fit’ Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for health workers. We spoke with ActiveCell’s Steve Hammond to hear how deploying Ansys simulation tools has been instrumental in the development process.
“We recently secured grant funding from Innovate UK to develop a custom fitted face mask using 3D scan data acquired via an iPhone. The aim of this project was to develop a solution that ensured a perfect seal between the mask and the wearer in order to better protect frontline NHS staff. A detailed understanding of airflow in a sealed mask was critical as we had to ensure there was enough oxygen for the user to breathe, even while wearing the mask for hours at a time.”
To help health workers as quickly as possible, we knew we needed to accelerate testing and compare options while minimising costs. Physically testing each mask design would have been both extremely time consuming and prohibitively expensive and so we turned to EDRMedeso to provide the Ansys Startup Program.
Ansys CFX and the Workbench optimisation routines helped us cycle through thousands of iterations of air inlet/outlet positioning to ensure the perfect position and filter sizes and help narrow the options down to the two most promising ideas, both of which have since undergone testing and validation in our lab.
The suite of simulation tools Ansys offered allowed us to study airflow within virtual masks to understand the build-up of carbon dioxide. Within a matter of days, we were able to settle on a final optimal design that exceeded ISO standards in respect to the acceptable levels of C02 within the mask.
Virtual testing drastically reduced the time and cost it took for us to settle on a final design, making our decision in a matter of weeks.
Thanks to simulation technology we have used via the Ansys Startup Program provided by EDRMedeso, we are now in the final stages of our project, designing and launching the iOS app so people can easily scan their face and order a custom-made mask which is profiled to fit their face.
Ansys StartUp program
