VOA常速英语2020--面罩生产商（在线收听）

My name is Eric Bubar.I'm the associate professor of physics at Mary Mount University in Arlington, Virginia.What I've been doing to help out with the Covid-19 response is creating 3-D printed PPE.So, the design I'm using is something called the face shield. I have two designs, this one and this one. These are actually not my designs. They are open sourced. They're created by other individuals. So, this was created by a company named Prusa Research. They're very well known in the 3D printing industry for having very reliable 3D printers. And then this is the Verkstan design made from a Swedish design firm.What is 3-D printing?It's a way to do manufacturing. It's called additive manufacturing in some circles. And what you do is you take some plastic in the form of a filament, and you extrude it through a very, very hot nozzle. That nozzle melts the plastic and it lays down a little bit of plastic in whatever shape you want. As soon as the plastic hits the,what we call the built plate, it kind of cools off and solidifies. Then the little nozzle will go up just a little bit and draw another layer on top of that, and build up whatever 3-D shape you can imagine. So, if you look very closely at this 3-D print,you can see that there are different layers. So, a 3-D printer builds up whatever shape you want, layer by layer by layer.

我叫埃里克·布巴。我是弗吉尼亚州阿灵顿玛丽山大学的物理副教授。为了应对新冠肺炎，帮助大家走出困境，我一直在制作3D打印的个人保护装备。所以我正在使用的设计叫做面罩。我有两款设计，这个和这个。这些其实不是我的设计。它们是开源的.它们是其他人设计的。这是由一家名为Prusa Research的公司发明的。他们在3D打印行业非常有名，因为他们拥有非常可靠的3D打印机。这是一家瑞典设计公司生产的Verkstan设计。什么是3D打印？这是制造的一种方式。在某些圈子里，叫做增材制造。你要做的就是拿一些长丝状的塑料，通过一个非常非常热的喷嘴把它挤出。那个喷嘴会融化塑料，然后它会以你想要的任何形状铺设一点塑料。 一旦塑料接触到我们所说的预制板，它就会冷却并凝固。然后小喷嘴会上升一点，在上面再铺一层，然后创造你能想象的任何三维形状。所以，如果你十分仔细地观察3D打印,你会看到有不同的层。3D打印机一层一层地打印出你想要的任何形状。

So altogether, this one takes probably about four hours to fabricate one, whereas this one, the 3D Verkstan, this 3D print takes about 40 minutes to print one of these little headbands. And then, the shield itself is a very thick overhead transparency that takes about, maybe,five minutes to hole punch, three hole punch to get it to pop onto these little pegs. So, this one takes, maybe, 45 minutes to create one. So, currently the shields are being used by a variety of different healthcare professionals, in hospitals, in community health centers, in elder care facilities. People like that these 3D printed shields are sanitizable so they can reuse them. They can clean them very easily. And regarding changes that we might make to these face shields, we're always open to more feedback. And we've gotten some feedback that some providers would like a little bit more length on the bottom of it, so that it kind of interfaces with their sternum a little bit better, so that it kind of blocks off any transition into the bottom. And some providers want a visor over the top. So, on this Prusa design, you can see that this is open. This is meant to ventilate air so that it doesn't fog up, but it does allow some particulates can get down in there, so, maybe, some visor to cover that portion up. Those are the two big pieces of feedback that we've gotten that were trying to come up with adaptations for and adjustments. But currently what we're trying to do is stick with designs that are recommended by NIH print exchange. These are the ones that have been approved for clinical use.

总之，这个大概要花四个小时来创造一个，而这一款3D Verkstan，这款3D打印需要40分钟来打印其中一款小发带。然后，面罩本身是一个非常厚的透明的戴在的头顶东西，大概需要五分钟打洞，用三孔的穿孔机，把它打在这些小钉子上。 所以，这个可能需要45分钟才能完成。因此，目前各种不同的医疗专业人员，包括医院、社区卫生中心、老年护理机构的人员都在使用面罩。人们喜欢这些可消毒的3D打印的面罩，它们可以重复使用。它们很容易清洗。关于我们可能对这些面罩所做的改变，我们总是乐于接受更多的反馈。 我们得到了一些反馈，一些供应商希望在底部增加一点长度，这样就能更好地与胸骨接触，所以它会阻挡任何到底部的过渡。 一些供应商希望在顶部安装遮阳板。所以，在这个Prusa设计中，你可以看到这是打开的。这是为了通风以免起雾，但它确实允许一些微粒进入，所以，也许遮阳板可以覆盖这部分。这是我们得到的两大反馈，我们试图进行适应和调整。但目前我们所要做的是坚持美国国立卫生研究院推荐的设计。这些是被批准用于临床的。