COVID Ventilator
Note: This design is intended for emergency use only. Individual situations may and will vary. Use only at your own risk.
- VU engineers and VUMC doctors team up for open-source ventilator design – Vanderbilt News
- Vanderbilt doctors, engineers working on ventilator design made out of household items – Fox 17
- Engineers built a homemade ventilator that can serve as ‘last resort’ for people in need – Mashable
- Vanderbilt doctors, engineers develop functional ventilator design to combat shortage – Vanderbilt Hustler
- Vanderbilt engineers continue work on ventilators to prepare for worst-case COVID-19 scenario – WKRN
Note: This is an active project. This web page went live on 3/29, and has been updated each day since. Our goal is to get complete plans for the design posted here as soon as humanly possible. We will also share design updates and testing results regularly.
Many engineers around the country are rising to the call of the COVID-19 pandemic, with many fascinating designs. We applaud and have been inspired by these efforts. What sets our work apart is that we seek a ventilator that is quick to build out of materials that are widely and readily available (plywood, drawer glides, windshield wiper motors, etc.); we seek to avoid use of 3D printers or other specialized materials and manufacturing processes so that many people with basic woodworking, soldering, and programming skills could put this device together in their garages. While simple in design and fabrication, our system can re-create the basic functions found in clinical mechanical ventilation systems that are critical for supporting patients who cannot breathe on their own, including precise control of the breathing rate and inspiration/expiration ratio, real-time inspiratory pressure monitoring, and breath-assist functionality.
Assumptions for use:
- No other ventilators are available.
- A trained healthcare professional is available to monitor the system and is available to answer alarm conditions
- A bag valve system (such as the Ambu® Bag) is available with accessories (i.e., with filter, PEEP valve, and ideally heat and moisture exchanger and a mechanical pop-off valve).
- This device is intended for single-patient use (it is simple/cheap enough to be disposable, and since it is single use, it will not have to be sterilized between patients).
Disclaimer:
- This device has not been tested on a live human and does not currently have FDA approval.
- No material on this site is intended to provide medical advice. All designs are intended for investigational use only.
- This site does not represent any official policies or procedures of Vanderbilt University.
- The material on this site is provided with no warranties explicit or implied.