Applications

Medical

myonic bearing solutions for challenging medical applications

When performing medical procedures, doctors must be able to rely on the precise and safe functioning of their instruments and equipment at all times.

myonic bearings and assemblies stand for maximum precision and safety, whether in dental handpieces with speeds of up to 500,000 revolutions per minute, in X-ray tubes with temperatures of up to 550°C or in instruments for neurosurgery, where 1/1000 mm can make or break an operation!

Dental technology

The origins of our company go back to the production of ball bearings for dental handpieces.
Today, we are the leading manufacturer in this market segment and generate a large proportion of our sales with sophisticated solutions for the dental industry worldwide.

Our products are used in air-driven turbines, but also in electrically driven angled handpieces and dental motors.
Special challenges arise from speeds of up to 500,000 rpm and the highest hygiene requirements with thousands of sterilization processes.
Our unique application and development expertise ensures maximum durability and minimum noise emissions.

Full speed

You can forget about Formula 1 – 19,000 rpm at full speed! Pathetic!

Your dentist will be quicker! – much quicker!
The drill in its turbine handpiece rotates at up to 500,000 revolutions per minute!

We can’t take away the unpleasantness of dental treatment, but myonic has been working for decades with all well-known manufacturers of dental handpieces to at least reduce the noise level.

The decisive factor here is the optimum interaction of the ball bearings with the customer’s instrument.
On our test benches, we not only demonstrate a low noise level, but also the long life time of the ball bearings in the toughest operating conditions and the influence of the many sterilization cycles that the handpiece will have to withstand at your dental practice!

Even though the dental sector accounts for a large proportion of myonic’s business, we hope that you will rarely have to experience the quality of our dental drill products personally!

Applications

The right tool for the job
Just as dentists need different tools for different operations, these tools also need different components to fulfil the various requirements. Air turbines rotate at up to 500,000 revolutions per minute, surgical tools have to withstand great forces, and all tools have to be sterilized or autoclaved at high temperatures. These requirements call for special bearing designs for each application, and we have the experience and expertise to ensure this.

Products Dental technology

Dental bearings

We distinguish between 3 product categories for dental bearings…

Read more here…

Collet chucks

The function of the collet chuck is to hold the tool, drill or milling cutter securely during operation and to guide it precisely.

Read more here…

Turbine units

The myonic collet offers the unique possibility of perfectly pairing the high-speed bearings established over decades with…

Read more here…

Accessories

The extreme conditions myonic bearings have to withstand in operation require the most ideal environment possible…

Read more here…

Medical technology

The medical technology industry is the leader in patent applications. Medical technology is also very important at myonic.
We supply ball bearing and assembly solutions for a wide variety of systems/applications.
Whether for the micrometer-precise positioning of a laser beam during eye surgery or for the smooth functioning of a hand prosthesis, the applications for ball bearings in medical technology are almost endless.

However, all of these applications have one thing in common: flawless functionality is expected without compromise, this is directly linked to patient well-being

With more than 50 years of experience, we offer our partners/customers maximum safety.

Surgical robots

Surgical robots are increasingly taking over in specialist areas of medicine.

In principle, they have the potential to increase the effectiveness of surgery and at the same time minimize the risk of postoperative complications and malpractice.
A world-renowned specialist from San Francisco can be present virtually at the operating table in Hamburg and can not only help with advice, but also with real action by performing the operation themselves with the help of a surgical robot.
Ball bearings are used at various points to ensure the necessary manoeuvrability of the surgical robot.
myonic offers solutions ranging from simple deep groove ball bearings to bearings with special geometric contours and complex assemblies.

Prostheses

Some companies have made it their mission to help people with physical limitations, particularly in their extremities, to lead an independent life again.

The challenge for manufacturers of products for orthopedic technology and prosthetics is to replace the function of a highly complex human body part in the best possible way.
The biomechanics of the human body have been optimized by evolution over thousands of years, so it is extremely challenging to develop an adequate replacement.

Joints are usually modelled with various bearing types. A typical challenge here is to transmit very high forces in a very small installation space. Standard bearings are often unable to do this and quickly reach their limits.
myonic offers exactly the right solutions for these applications.

Powertools

The name says it all. Power tools are used in orthopedics, traumatology and major bone surgery, among other fields.

The demands on the devices are enormous. In addition to the usually very high mechanical loads, all components have to withstand a large number of cleaning and sterilization cycles.
Optimized design and the use of selected, suitable materials can significantly improve both the functional reliability and life time of these instruments.
Decades of experience in the development and production of miniature ball bearings and assemblies for the dental and medical industries help us here.

X-ray technology

Razor-sharp images thanks to myonic X-ray tube bearings

X-rays not only help to identify a possible bone fracture or an infected tooth root. Even the smallest blood clots or tumors in the brain can be detected with a CT scan.

The top quality of myonic bearings ensures precise and low-vibration running and therefore a razor-sharp X-ray image. But X-rays are not only used for diagnosis, they are also successfully used in the fight against tumors.

A P P L I C A T I O N E X A M P L E

Precisely irradiated

CyberKnife system – precise and innovative radiotherapy treatment

The CyberKnife system is the first and only robotic whole-body radiosurgery system that offers non-operable treatment options for a variety of tumors including prostate, lung, spine, liver, pancreas and other extracranial tumors.

CyberKnife

The head of the CyberKnife system contains the InCise(tm) multileaf collimator system, which is used to adapt the required radiation to the shape of the tumor, thereby minimizing the exposure of the surrounding healthy areas to radiation.

The InCise(tm) multileaf collimator system from our customer Accuray (USA) consists of a large number of lead plates (leaves) that can be constantly repositioned in real time during treatment.

This means that the radiation area can be constantly readjusted, allowing the robot to treat the often irregularly shaped tumors from different radiation angles. It also enables doctors to efficiently and precisely irradiate tumors that move with the patient.

Available X-ray devices with rotating anodes – a brief overview

Performance to the point

myonic bearing units for X-ray tubes are used in OEM and replacement X-ray tubes by the world’s leading manufacturers to ensure the optimum production of sharp, detailed images.

In diagnostics, e.g. when X-raying a bone fracture, high power and very short irradiation times are used to avoid movements of the patient that reduce quality. The rotating anode technology used leads to a better distribution of thermal heat, making it possible to build X-ray tubes with high performance and a long service life.

The second important characteristic of a good tube is the minimum size or sharpness of the so-called focal spot. The ball bearing system developed by myonic ensures highly accurate, low-loss and vibration-free running in every position despite temperatures of up to 500°C.

Shh, no stress

Mammography is used for the early detection of breast cancer in women without signs or symptoms of breast disease or for the diagnosis of breast disease in women with symptoms such as lumps or pain.

In this highly sensitive application, special requirements are placed on the quiet and low-vibration operation of the X-ray tube in order to ensure uniform radiation emission for optimum contrast with a low radiation dose and at the same time not to put the patient under additional stress through unnecessary noise.

Installed in the tubes of leading manufacturers worldwide, myonic bearing units have made it possible to produce many hundreds of thousands of mammograms, thus successfully contributing to the fight against breast cancer.

Going round in circles at high speed

Computer tomography (CT) is a special form of X-ray. CT scans provide much more detailed images than conventional X-rays. With CT images, doctors can use special hardware and software to create very precise 3D views and any desired sectional planes of many parts of the body. Computer tomography scans are used, for example, to diagnose cerebral infarctions or bleedings, to localize lung tumors, tumors or inflammation of the abdomen, and they are also used for bone fractures or vascular problems.

To generate the required number of images, the X-ray tube unit rotates around the patient at a frequency of up to 4 times per second. The components experience an acceleration of up to 50 times the acceleration due to gravity.
The ball bearing units customized by myonic for this application can safely absorb these forces without losing their high-precision rotation or their low running noise.

Origin of X-rays and construction of an X-ray tube with rotating anode

The diagram shows the structure of an X-ray tube with a rotating anode. A heated filament cathode (minus) is used to generate free electrons, which are accelerated towards the anode (plus) in a vacuum by the high voltage applied – in the range of 1 kV to 10 kV.

When the electrons collide with the anode surface, two processes occur which ensure that the kinetic energy of the electrons is converted into radiation energy:

A (negatively charged) electron flies between the atoms of the anode and is deflected in the field of the (positively charged) atomic nuclei, which reduces the kinetic energy of the electron – it is decelerated (1) – and the difference in kinetic energy is converted into radiation energy. This results in so-called deceleration radiation.

If, on the other hand, the electron hits an electron in the shell of an atom of the anode, then this shell electron is knocked out of the shell (impact ionization) (2) and a space becomes free, which in turn is filled by an electron from a shell further out (of the same atom) (3). This releases energy, as this electron falls from a higher-energy shell to a lower level. The radiation, which has exactly this released energy, is called characteristic radiation.

If the accelerated electron still has kinetic energy after the collision, it continues to travel until this is completely dissipated.
At a heating current of 1 mA, around 1016 electrons hit the anode surface per second. It can therefore be assumed that the radiation is generated continuously.

However, the radiation yield of an X-ray tube is very low at approx. 1%. The remaining energy is converted into heat. To minimize overheating and wear on the anode, it rotates in a vacuum. The vacuum container is cooled from the outside by a coolant (usually oil).

Diagramm X-Ray
Rötgenröhrenlager - Strahlung
Rötgenröhrenlager - Strahlung2
Rötgenröhrenlager - Strahlung

Products X-ray technology

Diagnostics / mammography

The stationary use of the tubes in diagnostics reduces the mechanical requirements and thus often allows a more simple
…read more here

Mid-CT / vascular

The ability to capture X-ray images on electronic detectors allows a whole sequence of X-ray images to be produced
…read more here

High-end CT

To produce the required number of images, the X-ray tube unit in a high-end CT unit rotates around the patient at an
…read more here

This might also interest you!

Industry →

Machine tool industry →

Aerospace →

References →