Gradian Health Systems
Mechanical Engineering Intern | New York, New York
June 2016 - August 2016
Gradian Health Systems™ designs and build equipment used worldwide in hospitals ranging from world-renowned academic centers to resource-constrained district facilities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Oxygen is a life saving therapy for children with pneumonia, hypoxaemia and other sicknesses, however challenges remain in oxygen delivery, especially in resource constrained settings of Africa..
Cylinder oxygen is the single largest expense for most hospitals (provincial or district). Intermittent and unstable power in addition to absence of oxygen pipelines make it essential for a cost effective method of providing safe oxygen.
Additionally, harsh, hot and humid environments present challenging operating conditions that often cause premature failure of medical devices in low resource economies in the African continent.
High transportation and supply chain costs for the regular delivery of oxygen, makes it critical for the presence of a device that could satisfy the demand of <90% pure oxygen within the operating rooms.
As an mechanical engineer, I am working on prototyping Gradian’s second healthcare product - an oxygen cylinder filling station.
My role is to experiment, test and understand the different failure modes and help design a simple, durable and robust initial prototype for safe and reliable oxygen delivery. Temperature and Humidity testing is performed by maintaining a relative humidity of 95% while cycling through various temperatures.
In addition to researching regulatory requirements, OEM and vendor options, I will be working on possible technical specifications and functional descriptions of the product.
I was also given the responsibility of reaching out to different OEM's (SMC air drying pneumatic equipment) and testing labs, recieved quotes for their respective products as well as samples (used for testing). Finally was given the opportunity to travel to NTS technical systems, an internationally accredited lab based out of New Jersey, to test the product in an environmental chamber simulating high heat and high humidity.
Proposed a design of the Oxygen Station that could be used in two ways - directly as a source of oxygen or as a station to fill cylinders (normal use). As electricity is very erratic in these hospitals, a method where the station can double up as a source of oxygen for a short period (until the electricity is back) was considered.