In-situ tool wear monitoring and its effects on the performance of porcine cortical bone drilling: a comparative in-vitro investigation

Drilling is one of the most widely used process in orthopaedic surgical operation and the same drill bit is used a number of times in hospitals. Using the same drill bit a several times may be the cause of osteosynthesis and osteonecrosis.

In the present work, the effect of repeated orthopaedic surgical twist drill bit on the tool wear, force, torque, temperature and chip morphology during porcine cortical bone drilling is studied. Results were compared with rotary ultrasonic drilling (RUD) on the same bone using a hollow drill tool coated with diamond grains. A sequence of 200 experiments (100 with each process, RUD and CD) were performed with constant process parameters.

Wear area on the drill bit is significantly increased as the drill bit is used repeatedly in CD, whereas no attritious wear was found on the diamond coated grains in RUD.

Comparative results showed that cutting force, torque and temperature increased as a function of tool wear in CD as the same drill bit was used a number of times. No significant variation in the cutting force and torque was observed in RUD as the number of drilled holes increased.