Helping the World Breathe Easier NOVAMED team receives patent for low-cost emergency ventilator
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“We are looking forward to working with like-minded partners to make such critical, life-saving technology affordable to all people.” —C. Nataraj, PhD (above, left), Moritz Endowed Professor of Engineered Systems
echanical Engineering Professors C. Nataraj, PhD, Alfonso Ortega, PhD, and Garrett Clayton, PhD, along with Chris Townend, facilities manager for the College of Engineering, were awarded a patent in the fall for the development of a novel type of mechanical ventilator. Initially manufactured as an emergency alternative during the COVID-19 pandemic, this machine, called NovaVent, will now serve as a high-efficiency, low-cost device suitable for mitigating the global need for medical equipment. “The need for this equipment goes beyond COVID-19,” Dr. Nataraj says. “Ventilators like NovaVent are critical parts of the medical infrastructure that are also needed to help the treatment of lung disease, cardiac arrest, strokes, brain injuries and more.” Developed in collaboration with the M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing, NovaVent is made from widely accessible components to provide continuous mandatory ventilation (CMV) intended for patients incapable of breathing on their own. The patented design also controls tidal volume, a vital component to providing enough ventilation to a patient while preventing lung trauma. Settings can be adjusted through the control panel, and alarms will sound if the correct conditions are not met. The NovaVent supplies CMV at a rate of roughly 90% of expensive high-end ventilators, while saving tens of thousands of dollars in production costs, Dr. Nataraj says. NovaVent is the first patented technology to come from NOVAMED, an interdisciplinary lab dedicated to developing open-source, affordable and globally available medical technologies.
Advancing Hydrology Research VCRWS team receives $1.4 million NSF Major Research Instrumentation grant
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aculty members from the Villanova Center for Resilient Water Systems (VCRWS) were awarded a three-year, $1.4 million Major Research Instrumentation grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the installation and upkeep of a unidirectional sediment-feed tilting flume. The device will serve a wide scope of hydrology research projects and experiments for Villanova researchers as well as national and international partners in academia, water utilities and engineering firms. With the ability to mimic numerous real-world variables, the flume can be used to research diverse topics, such as urban hydrology, sediment deposits, soil liquefaction, fluvial processes and sediment capping technologies. It can tilt on an incline, weigh and recirculate sediment, create waves and control water flow and height, among other features.
“To be able to research on a unique piece of equipment like this is very auspicious for us,” says Virginia Smith, PhD, associate professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who was the principal investigator on the grant. “Over the past 20 years, we have been able to gain great insight into how stormwater infrastructure works and how green stormwater solutions can be powerful,” Dr. Smith says. “But the real GOING GLOBAL world is messy and complicated. Being The Major Research able to pair the existing datasets with Instrumentation grant was laboratory experiments on the flume one of two NSF grants and isolate single variables will allow us awarded to VCRWS in the to understand the drivers and causes of fall. The other was a why different types of infrastructure two-year, $250,000 succeed or underperform under various planning grant to set up a conditions and will advance the science global engineering research center for urban around stormwater engineering.” hydrology.