Novel surgical needle design and manufacturing for vibratory-assisted insertion in medical applications

This paper presents a novel design of solid surgical needle featured by its 4-bevel tip and shaft slots with the aim to further explore the potential of vibratory needle insertion for medical applications. The design philosophy was discussed, and a new way of using electric discharging machining (EDM) is introduced for fabricating the new needle design. Two sets of needle prototypes with different geometry parameters were fabricated and used for insertion into porcine skin with ultrasonic vibration. Modal analysis was conducted for the needles under the given vibration condition. The results showed that the needle design could reduce the puncture force by 14.5% at maximum than the 12.2% of control. The reduction of puncture force was found to be related to the axial displacement or the combination of axial and transverse displacement. The effects of geometry parameters on transverse displacement were also discussed. The presented new design and manufacturing techniques can be used for surgical tools development and medical applications.