Thermal Analysis of Bovine Bone Drilling

In medical practices, high speed surgical drills are usually used when drilling the
screws into the fracture bones. The friction between the drill bit and the bone during the
drilling process will generate heat. This heat then will produce the thermal necrosis into
the bone. Parameters involve in heat generation are spindle speed, drill bit diameter, drill
bit point angle, feed rate, and the bone's properties. The focus will be on the setup of the
experiment test rig to perform the bovine bone drilling and the thermal analysis of this
experiment using ANSYS. The principles of heat transfer mechanism and complex
thermo-mechanical equation from the machining theory will be used alongside
anisotropic properties of the bone. This project will look into the problem of high heat
generation during drilling process and the process pararneters that will control the drilling
temperature. Drilling tests were performed on mild steel cylinder bar and bovine bone
femur. The effect of spindle speed and feed rate on the temperature was explored. The
temperature during drilling is linearly increases with the depth of the specimen.