Testing medical drills for noise emissions

Abstract

A comparative study of drills from a range of manufacturers was carried out in the laboratory. These tests were made under a variety of loading conditions to assess the characteristics of the noise likely in the dentist’s surgery. Details of the test setup are given, and some of the issues in analysing the results considered. Simultaneous Recordings were made of the noise on a minidisk recorder, a hand held sound meter, and a sound analyser. The results from these are considered. These are significant for dentist’s hearing, and the patient’s perception of visiting the dentists. The performance of different designs of pneumatic drill varies much with type and load.