Experimental Investigation of Relationship between Cutting Force, Vibration Frequency and Temperature Gradient During Robotic Assisted Bone Drilling

Bone drilling processes are often carried out in numerous surgical areas in all operational theatre room in various hospitals across the world, these processes includes orthopedic surgeries, which is mending and fixing of broken bones. Bone drilling is classed as one of the most sensitive milling processes in biomedical engineering field. One of the most critical problems encountered during bone drilling is high cutting force which causes an increase in temperature rise more than the tolerable limit. Optimum concentration is also needed, in order to avoid extended cracks due to high vibration which could also cause more damage to the surrounding tissues, experimental results showed that it is better to keep bone external temperature below 50°C, if exceeded, the bone could be exposed to serious damage called thermal osteonecrosis which can result to loose of bone implant interface. Previous studies are only limited to investigate the relationship between the cutting force and temperature. However, the concept of this research work is an eye opener, which will also help us to predict the relationship between drilling vibration frequency and the temperature rise of the bone. Our discovery shows that vibrational drilling is good for surgical bone drilling, when applied moderately, a drastic reduction in bone temperature was observed, this could be used as a standard procedure to prevent necrosis during surgical bone drilling. Reduction in the cutting force and increase vibrational (frequency) is good for bone drilling, and this is to be investigated in this research work.