Microfracture Pick Strike Plate Force Transmission
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional microfracture picks face difficulties in advancing through hard cortical bone, leading to potential tip breakage and damage to surrounding tissue, and the use of strike plates makes the device cumbersome and limits access in delicate joint areas.
Innovation Solution
A microfracture pick design featuring a shaft with a sharp, optionally angled tip and an engaging feature for a strike instrument, allowing the strike instrument to transmit force through the shaft and tip, reducing manual force requirements and minimizing tip damage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a conventional microfracture pick is used to perforate subchondral bone manually, then the sharp tip can penetrate the bone, but the tip may break or become damaged due to excessive manual force requirements
Solution Approach 1:
A strike plate is introduced as an intermediary component between the microfracture pick and the surgeon's hand. The strike plate receives impact forces from a hammer or mallet and transmits them to the microfracture pick, serving as a mediator that converts indirect impact into direct penetration force while protecting the sharp tip from direct manual handling stresses
Solution Approach 2:
The microfracture pick is segmented into distinct functional zones: a shaft portion with an engaged strike plate for force application, and a separate sharp tip portion for bone penetration. This segmentation allows the shaft to handle mechanical impact forces while the tip maintains its cutting integrity, resolving the contradiction between force transmission and tip protection
2Force
If a hammer or mallet is used to strike the microfracture pick handle, then the tip can advance through hard cortical bone, but the tip may skive across the bone surface and damage surrounding tissue
Solution Approach 1:
The strike plate serves as a mediator that distributes impact forces uniformly across the microfracture pick shaft. By providing a dedicated impact surface that is perpendicular to the tip axis, it ensures forces are transmitted axially rather than laterally, preventing the tip from skiving across the bone surface and damaging surrounding tissue
Solution Approach 2:
The strike plate is pre-positioned and firmly engaged to the shaft before bone perforation begins. This preliminary securing ensures that when impact forces are applied, they are immediately and correctly directed along the intended penetration path, preventing lateral deviation and skiving motion
3Ease of operation
If a strike plate is directly attached to the shaft or handle, then the microfracture pick can be struck with a hammer, but the device becomes heavy and cumbersome
Solution Approach 1:
The strike plate is designed with local quality optimization - it is positioned only at the specific location on the shaft where force application is needed, and its dimensions are minimized to provide sufficient strike surface area while keeping weight additions to the overall device as low as possible
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enhances the effectiveness of penetrating bone with reduced tip breakage and skiving, while maintaining access to the surgical site, allowing for more precise and efficient microfracture procedures.
Implementation Method 1
a strike plate can be directly attached to the shaft or handle of the conventional microfracture pick... When a surgeon strikes the strike plate with a hammer or mallet, the resulting force causes the tip of the microfracture pick to advance through the subchondral bone
Data Source
AI summary
A microfracture pick having features configured to aid a user in advancing the microfracture pick through bone. The microfracture pick has an elongated member with a proximal end, a distal end, a sharp, optionally angled tip disposed adjacent the distal end of the elongated member, and at least one engaging feature disposed at one or more locations on the elongated member for engaging a complementary feature of a strike instrument. By striking an impact surface of the strike instrument, the user can produce a force that is translated via the elongated member of the microfracture pick through the tip, thereby making penetration of the tip through the bone more effective.