> SUBCONTRACTING DEEP HOLE DRILLING Premier grade medical experience


As one of the UK’s largest providers of specialist deep hole drilling, gun drilling and honing services, Premier Deep Hole Drilling operates across a number of demanding markets – including meeting the diverse challenges created by customers in the medical device and human implant industries. Many international medical


application experts are forecasting ongoing industry growth, with an aging population and increases in obesity creating an ever-growing market for implanted replacement body parts. Although the company is actively involved with a number of medical implant and medical device and drug delivery customers, St Albans-based Premier Deep Hole Drilling is expanding its scope in this growing market. Premier’s managing director, Stuart Grant, explains: “From


knees and hips to dental structures, the size of the market for implants is increasing worldwide. The challenges faced by our medical customers, in terms of material, surface finish and geometric tolerance, are not too far removed from the other advanced industry sectors we support, such as aerospace, motorsport and oil and gas.” Medical device and drug


delivery components produced by Premier include detector pressure tubes and filtration tubes. Machined core tubes for the filtration and the reverse osmosis (RO) industries are designed by customers for use in a variety of applications. Working with the customer from inception, Premier continues to provide engineering expertise as well as components machined to customer specifications. The tubes are machined at


both ends and features can be generated, including turned and/ or bored diameters, chamfers,


grooves, multiple rows of drilled cross holes, abraded surfaces, slots and specific overall lengths. Outside diameters range from 25mm to 100mm with overall lengths typically held to ±0.5mm but these can be held tighter if the application requires it. Size, location and geometry of other machined features are held to CNC controlled tolerances. Typical filtration core tube materials include ABS, Polysulfone, Noryl, PVC, CPVC, and stainless steel. Hip replacement has become


increasingly commonplace as the medical technology has improved, as life spans increase and the population ages. It is most commonly performed to relieve the pain and immobility resulting from arthritis. As well as the component parts


for replacement hip joints, medical tools, such as rasp handles, are also produced by Premier. Rasps are used to prepare bones for joint replacement implants; they


can open up the socket joint in the pelvis to accept a machined insert and also shape the femoral neck to accommodate the stem of the precision machined ball joint. Used to secure long bones that have been fractured, bone nails are also machined by the company. Sometimes called a rod, the bone nail is a long, thick metal pin with holes in it which is driven down the shaft of the bone from one end. Screws are then


passed through the bone and through a hole in the pin. “We have experience of


machining bio-compatible materials to very tight tolerances for a number of customers and are always keen to discuss new projects with medical suppliers,” Mr Grant concludes.


> PREMIER www.premier-drilling.co.uk


Trauma components – without the trauma


Through the Chessington- based operation of Mollart Engineering the medical industry can obtain a fully developed deep hole gundrilling system for creating the holes in titanium trauma nails.


The development by Mollart is in response to the in-vogue growth in demand for the use of surgical grade titanium in preference to 316 stainless steel for trauma related components. Mollart Engineering, in conjunction with its tooling partner Botek and a specialist supplier of cannulated tube to the medical industry,


has developed the drilling process for producing holes in the difficult to machine material that creates a totally new series of options for component supply. Components can also be


produced complete within the subcontract machining service provided by Mollart or by obtaining precision machined thin wall drawn tubing from the partner material supplier. In this form the bore is finished to size using a Mollart gundrill and is able to meet the stringent geometric tolerances and surface finish requirements demanded by the industry.


For trauma components depth to diameter ratios of 40:1 are common as parts such as femur and tibia nails can require through holes to be produced in excess of 400mm in depth. The latest development of the gundrilling process allows a component such as a tibia or femur nail to be drilled in a single pass to 18mm diameter with a penetration rate of 12mm per minute. Such is the technology that a gundrill will maintain a concentricity and straightness within 0.015mm TIR over a depth of 400mm. Other long holes for trauma components as small as 6mm


can be successfully drilled in 13mm diameter titanium with a thin 3.5mm wall thickness. Meanwhile, the same


technology can now be applied to stainless steel bone screw


production requiring holes 2mm diameter by between 40mm and 120mm deep.


> MOLLART www.mollart.co.uk


Production Engineering Solutions • January 2012 55


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