Prosthodontics, Special Patient Care, Maxillofacial Prosthetics, and Weintraub Center, UCLA School of Dentistry

High Volume Evacuation

A high-volume evacuator (HVE) is a suction device that pulls large volume of air from the oral environment at over 5 SCFM.  Most intraoral HVE devices are typically straight hollow cylinders.  Extraoral HVEs are funnel shaped devices that have large opening on one end that converges into standard small opening on standard HVE tubing valves.  These gained popularity during COVID pandemic as a potential mean To reduce error source prep. However their design induce turbulent air flow That result in pressure drop and decreased volume metric flow rate, As shown by computational fluid dynamic modeling. 

Our team designed high volume evacuation tips, and printed them to confirm minimal pressure loss and high flow rate on other units connected to the same dental chair unit. 

As expected, the UCLA HVE’s provide more effective flow than commercially available HVE tips.  Besides more gradual transitions to optimize full dynamics, the UCLA HVE’s are printed with high resolution 3D printers with 17 micron resolution that provides very smooth internal surfaces to minimize drag and turbulence without any post processing. Our engineers measured aerosol levels by quantifying micro- and nano-particles at and away from the operating zone.  HVE tips offer additional protection the dental personnel and patients  from aerosol spread. This extra layer of protection directly converts high aerosol generating procedures into low/mild aerosol generating procedures, thereby reducing the risk of contamination.

These portable extraoral tips proved to be very efficient in reducing aerosol levels.

In fact the UCLA 3D printed HVE’s are at least as effective as commercial vacuum machines that cost thousands of dollars and are much noisier, and aerosol reduction is observed at greater than 8 feet away.

High volume evacuation tips team