Analysis of the process parameters affecting the bone burring process: An in-vitro porcine study.

BACKGROUND

A stable bone burring process, which avoids thermal osteonecrosis and minimizes harmful vibrations, is important for certain orthopedic surgical procedures, and especially relevant to robot-operated bone burring systems.

METHODS

An experimental characterization of the effects of several bone burring process parameters was performed. Burring parameters were evaluated by resultant bone temperature, tool vibration, and burring force.

RESULTS

An optimal combination of bone burring parameters produced minimums in both bone temperature (<40°C) and tool vibration (<4 g-rms). A cylindrical burr, oriented normal to the specimen, resulted in significantly higher temperatures (50.8 ± 6.8°C) compared with a spherical burr (33.5 ± 4.3°C) (P = .008). Regardless of the parameters tested, burring forces were less than 10 N.

CONCLUSIONS

The recommended configuration, which minimized both bone temperature and vibrations experimentally, was a 6-mm spherical burr at 15 000 rpm with a 2 mm/s feed rate.