A Fracture Model of Ultrasonically Assisted Osteotomy

摘要

As part of a research effort into robotic surgery applications, novel bone cutting tools using ultrasonically assisted osteotomes are being proposed which eliminate sawing actions and improve controllability and accuracy of the surgical process. Previous studies of ultrasonic cutting of food products have provided evidence that ultrasonic cutting can be successfully modelled using a fracture mechanics approach, where the cutting tool sets up the stress conditions in the workpiece to advance a crack. This paper describes the fracture studies of bovine femur that have provided the initial data required to design an ultrasonic osteotome. The finite element (FE) method is used to investigate the ultrasonic cutting of bone by simulating the vibration loading of the blade in the crack in the FE models.