Additive manufacturing in the COVID-19 pandemic: Equipment and challenges?

Abstract

Nowadays, the COVID-19 pandemic spreads all over the world. Every community is helping in the pandemic situation. All communities, like material scientists, medical practitioners, engineers, and healthcare professionals, are collaborating with each other to fight against the pandemic situation. Therefore, manufacturing engineers also play a role in COVID-19. There are a number of medical devices or protection equipment that can be developed by additive manufacturing (AM) to fulfill the shortage of supply. In the present research, an attempt has been made to review the different medical components developed by AM processes. The government’s regulations for different components (development and testing) are also discussed. The challenges associated with the products developed by AM processes are explained. The safety of the developed products is the prime responsibility of manufacturing engineers. This will definitely give the engineers direction to fight against the pandemic situation.