Design and Development of an Endotracheal Tube (ETT) Connector for Medical Intubation Using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)

The rapid prototyping process has undergone outstanding advancement. Recently, many sectors, such as the healthcare sector, have utilized rapid prototyping in medical prototyping. They have also used it to produce low-volume production parts. This paper aims to show how rapid prototyping can be used in the medical field by redesigning a prototype for an endotracheal tube (ETT) connector. A survey was conducted. The purpose of this survey is to identify the common problem of ETT and to gain some ideas for redesigning the task of new ETT connectors. The prototypes were designed based on quality function deployment (QFD). The basic specifications of the new design of ETT parts were determined. After analysis of the user’s needs and requirements, concept designs were presented. The Pugh chart and the concept scoring matrix were used to evaluate the designs. Fused deposition modeling (FDM) was used to fabricate the prototypes. This prototype is able to improve the quality and reliability of the current design.