Small but mighty!

Together with our client Zimmer & Peacock, K8 has developed a two-part valve housing for the Inflammacheck medical device, which we have also helped to develop. This valve house is used to control airflow when the patient breathes in and out through the device, which is used to monitor inflammation in the patient’s lungs.

The valve house is thus designed with several chambers and valves to direct airflow. The challenge was to create a valve housing which could be produced using injection moulding, would create distinct and sealed chambers when the two halves are pressed together, and deliver a product which was easy and intuitive to use. To achieve this result K8 worked extensively with fine tuning, tolerancing and testing of the concept using 3D printed models, this included building an ‘’artificial lung’’ test set up which was used at Zimmer & Peacocks facilities.

The final design is injection mouldable, intuitive to use with integrated click fingers, and achieves more stable results than the previous valve house due to the sealing method ad tolerancing steps used. In addition, the parts were also designed for a plastic which allows autoclaving between use, avoiding unnecessary plastic waste.