A study on development of a reusable protective face shield using a material extrusion process

Hwang, A. J.; Ahn, D. G.

Due to the pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus, the demand for personal protective equipment (PPE), including face shield, ventilator value, and so on, has abruptly increased in the world. The collapse of the global supply chain of PPE has led to a shortage of the PPE. An additive manufacturing process has emerged as one of solutions to overcome such shortage. The objective of this study was to develop a reusable protective face shield using a material extrusion (ME) process. Five types of face shield were designed. Effects of the design on effective stress distribution, deformation, and specific rigidity were investigated through finite element analyses. To examine the influence of the design on deposition and post-processing characteristics, five types of face shield were fabricated from a ME apparatus. Post-processing characteristics and building time were greatly improved when Design 1 was adopted. In addition, the overall weight, wasted material, and buy-to-fly (BTF) ratio were significantly reduced when Design 1 was applied. Finally, results of wearing and droplet spreading experiments showed that the fabricated face shield for Design 1 was applicable to protection of droplet spreading. © 2021 Korean Society for Precision Engineeing. All rights reserved.