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In the early days, our focus as engineers was on helping the NHS to manage the numbers of sick patients coming through the doors. We helped to build field hospitals and temporary mortuaries, converting buildings, and provided lifesaving and enhancing equipment, we designed and manufactured biomedical devices that supported patients breathing, all in just a matter of weeks.
Since the start of the Covid pandemic there has been a great deal of scientific effort to research this new virus and its transmission routes, which we have used to develop practical engineering solutions that reduce Covid risks and help keep people safe as they return to everyday life. The Institution has created a Covid-19 Task Force that aims to provide clear guidance to government, businesses and others interested in what they can do to create safe working and living environments. The task force is led by Frank Mills, who is the chair of the Construction and Building Services Division of the IMechE, and chaired by immediate past-president Professor Joe McGeough.
Sharing best practice
The task force has representation from our special interest groups and international regions. This multi-disciplined team allows the Institution to share best practice from around the world as well as apply existing knowledge. A core objective of the task force is to provide clear advice on how engineering solutions are used effectively.
Engineers solve problems; one of the first things to address is, ‘how to safely bring back into service a building that has been unoccupied, including how to clean it, how to ensure that air inside it is clean and safe to breathe and indeed how the people entering the building are not going to put themselves and others at risk’. There is no time to invent new solutions, leading us to look at techniques that have been tried and tested elsewhere.
Sanitising technology
The group has considered the role of UV sanitising technology which can be used to sanitise operating theatres, aircraft cabins and train carriages. We know that direct UV light is carcinogenic so we must be cautious of any negative side effects. We are familiar with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling – this shows us how people use the building and how the air flows in the space. We can use this understanding of the CFD science to ensure that clean air is introduced, replacing any that has potentially been in contact with the virus.
We can learn from our colleagues in parts of the world where there have been minimal deaths from the virus and examine the best practice they used to manage this. In Hong Kong for instance the use of thermal screening is commonplace and the prophylactic use of masks is routine. They have utilised copper technology to kill the virus and used cleaning products that can protect surfaces for up to 28 days. All these solutions are readily available in the UK today.
As engineers we simply want to do our job and to solve the problems associated with getting life back to as close to normal as possible until there is an effective cure or vaccine. We must ensure that the solutions we provide do not reverse any of the good work already done in areas such as the reduction in the use of fossil fuels or in the creation of plastic that ends up in our oceans. Our solutions should be delivered while maintaining our commitments to low-carbon and environmentally positive activities.
This is not our first pandemic and it will not be our last. Our engineering ingenuity in the UK puts us in a good position to develop low-carbon adaptations of existing technologies, fighting coronavirus and climate change in parallel.
This article appeared in Professional Engineering Issue 5 2020.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.