An ultrasonic blade for cutting bone

Many surgical tools used for cutting bone have disadvantages such as poor accuracy, poor quality of cut and heat damage. A new tool is required for robotic assist surgical applications that overcomes these deficiencies and minimises reaction forces into the robot. This work presents a feasibility study of ultrasonically assisted osteotomy and demonstrates the advantages of ultrasonic cutting of bone. The results of ultrasonically assisted bone cutting trials using bovine cortical bone are presented and compared with results obtained from finite element (FE) models simulating the vibration loading of the blade.Many surgical tools used for cutting bone have disadvantages such as poor accuracy, poor quality of cut and heat damage. A new tool is required for robotic assist surgical applications that overcomes these deficiencies and minimises reaction forces into the robot. This work presents a feasibility study of ultrasonically assisted osteotomy and demonstrates the advantages of ultrasonic cutting of bone. The results of ultrasonically assisted bone cutting trials using bovine cortical bone are presented and compared with results obtained from finite element (FE) models simulating the vibration loading of the blade