NSK Press Release
NSK Europe Ltd.
Marketing & Communications Department
NSK QuickStop breakthrough improves safety and efficiency in dental tools
NSK has introduced the QuickStop Bearing for air turbine dental handpieces.
An innovative design, and unique rubber seal, means the bearing allows dentists to work more safely and efficiently without adding size or complexity to the handpiece.
Dentists use air turbine handpieces for everything from polishing to cutting and drilling. Whilst in the patient's mouth, the handpiece can spin at speeds all the way up to 400,000rpm. For safety reasons, however, dentists need to wait for the tip of the tool to come to a complete stop before removing it from the mouth.
It usually takes several seconds for this to happen, because the rotor spins at such high speeds and has such low internal friction. This means, in the absence of any inbuilt breaking mechanism, that there’s nothing to actively slow the piece down once the air supply is cut. Furthermore, during the process, negative pressure inside the head of the handpiece causes ‘suck back’ which sees anything in the patient’s mouth (including saliva, tooth fragments and blood) sucked into the tool.
To solve these problems, some handpieces incorporate a braking structure which reduces the time it takes for the piece to come to a complete stop and limits any suck back. The trade-off, however, is significantly larger heads and higher costs.
QuickStop addresses these challenges by incorporating a special rubber seal which opens and closes depending on whether air is passing through the bearing. When the air supply is turned on, the rubber seal opens, and the bearing can rotate as fast as is needed. When the air supply is stopped, the rubber seal makes immediate contact with the inner ring of the bearing, which quickly brings the rotation to a halt whilst also sealing the bearing, preventing suck back.
The bearing can be incorporated into existing handpieces, meaning that both the faster stopping time and anti-suck-back functionality can be achieved simply by replacing a component. As a result, the QuickStop solution offers improved functionality, safety and efficiency, as well as longer service life for dental handpieces, whilst remaining cheaper and smaller than alternative options.
‘At NSK we are dedicated to both R&D and continual improvement,’ said Takashi Yamaji, Chief Advisor to NSK’s European Industrial Business Unit. ‘We love solving problems and making life easier for our customers. The QuickStop solution is another example of how the expertise of our team, and the high quality of our products, have come together to overcome a common challenge and allow end-users to operate more efficiently and profitably.'
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