Customized protective visors enabled by closed loop controlled 4D printing

The COVID-19 pandemic makes protective visors important for protecting people in close contacts. However, the production of visors cannot be increased greatly in a short time, especially at the beginning of the pandemic. The 3D printing community contributed largely in fabricating the visor frames using the rapid and adaptive manufacturing ability. While there are many open source designs of face visors for affordable 3D printers, all these designs fabricate mono-sized frames without considering diverse users’ dimensions. Here, a new method of visor post-processing technology enabled by closed loop controlled 4D printing is proposed. The new process can further deform the printed visor to any customized size for a more comfortable user experience. FEM analysis of the customized visor also shows consistent wearing experience in different circumstances compared with the old visor design. The fabrication precision and time cost of the method is studied experimentally. A case study regarding the reducing, reusing and recycling (3R) of customized visors in classrooms is proposed to enable the customized visors manufactured in a more sustainable way.