Tool wear in the machining of bones is a vital issue in orthopaedic and dental surgery, where it has a direct impact on surgical precision, implant position and patient healing. The traditional SS316L tools are biocompatible, but they are readily affected by thermal degradation and plastic adhesions with machining processes in dry conditions. This research paper is intended to comparatively analyse the wear properties of the biocompatible ZrO 2 ceramic inserts with SS316L in dry bone milling conditions. The single and multiple cutting strategies were used in machining at a feed rate of 0.02, 0.03 and 0.05 mm/tooth and spindle speeds of 900, 1000 and 1100 rpm. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was used to analyse wear behaviour. The results indicated that ZrO 2 cutting tools equally had reduced flank wear with a minimum average wear ( V b avg ) of 88.89 μm at 0.03 mm/tooth and 1000 rpm against 125.87 μm of SS316L under identical conditions. ZrO 2 had the highest flank wear ( V b max ) of 270.54 μm against 353.31 μm of SS316L. ZrO 2 even showed improved mechanical wear resistance, as it retained more obvious cutting edges. These results stress that ZrO 2 can serve as a material of durable, precise and reusable tools in the machining of surgical bone with possible implications to enhanced clinical outcomes.
Addepalli et al. (Fri,) studied this question.