Drilling in Bone: Modeling Heat Generation and Temperature Distribution

Abstract

Thermo-mechanical equations were developed from machining theory to predict heat generation due to drilling and were coupled with a heat transfer FEM simulation to predict the temperature rise and thermal injury in bone during a drilling operation. The rotational speed, feed rate, drill geometry and bone material properties were varied in a parametric analysis to determine the importance of each on temperature rise and therefore on thermal damage. It was found that drill speed, feed rate and drill diameter had the most significant thermal impact while changes in drill helix angle, point angle and bone thermal properties had relatively little effect.

Drilling of Bone: Practicality, Limitations and Complications Associated with Surgical Drill-Bits

“…Likewise, Hillery and Shauib (Hillery and Shuaib 1999) detected no significant difference in temperature elevation in bovine and cadaveric bone in vitro when testing point angles of 70˚, 80˚ and 90˚. Numerical models have also suggested point angle to have a negligible effect on the maximal temperature attained during drilling (Davidson and James 2003). Ostensibly, a lower limit to the point angle which can be accommodated by 2-fluted drills without compromising the structural integrity of the point exists but which has not been described.…”

“…Natali and colleagues suggested the optimal helix angle for surgical drill-bits to be approximately 36° (Natali, Ingle et al 1996), actually rendering it a fast helix. The helix angle of a drill-bit has implications for both rake angle and torsional rigidity (Narasimha, Osman et al 1987) but has little effect on the maximal temperature elevation (Davidson and James 2003). Narasimha and co-workers (Narasimha, Osman et al 1987) demonstrated that torsional rigidity varies parabolically with helix angle, reaching a maximum at approximately 28˚.…”

“…Drill-bits are also used in the preparation of bony tunnels, such as in anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Drilling is associated with the conversion of mechanical work energy into thermal energy causing a transient rise in temperature of adjacent bone and soft tissues to above normal physiological levels (Matthews and Hirsch 1972;Lavelle and Wedgwood 1980;Eriksson and Albrektsson 1984;Eriksson, Albrektsson et al 1984b;Abouzgia and Symington 1996;Natali, Ingle et al 1996;Toews, Bailey et al 1999;Bachus, Rondina et al 2000;Davidson and James 2003;Augustin, Davila et al 2008;Franssen, van Diest et al 2008;Bertollo, Milne et al 2010). Primary sources of this thermal energy are plastic deformation and shear failure of bone and friction at the machining face.…”

Finite element modeling and experimentation of bone drilling forces

“…In this case, the frictional contact between a drill and cortical bone was modeled with a constant coefficient of friction of 0.7 [17]. The models require on average 54 h on 36 Intel quad-core processors with 48 GB RAM each to finish the analysis using High Performance Computing (HPC) facility available at Loughborough University.…”

The influence of anisotropy in numerical modeling of orthogonal cutting of cortical bone

“…Different models have been developed [11,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] with the aim of reproducing the behaviour of cortical bone. In this work, cortical bone of bovine femur is used as a reference and the numerical results are compared with the experimental data in the literature.…”