Surface roughness and stress responses of a feldspar porcelain to fatigue impact

Abstract

Dental ceramics are attractive in restorative dentistry due to their approximations to the appearances and functions of human teeth with which we chew our food. Chewing processes generally occur at cyclic loading range of 70–800 N and up to 1400 cycles per day. Most fatigue studies on dental ceramics were conducted at the loads up to 250 N. These loads are much smaller than the maximum bite forces of 500–700 N and tooth clench or grinding forces of up to 800 N. This paper reports on an investigation of fatigue response of a dental porcelain at the higher end of the load range impacted by a tungsten carbide ball. The responses of surface roughness and contact stress to the applied loads and cyclic numbers were quantitatively studied. The results show that the cyclic numbers had significant influences on both average surface roughness Ra and maximum roughness Rmax (ANOVA, p<0.05). However, the applied loads did not significantly affect Ra and Rmax values (ANOVA, p>0.05). It is also found that the contact stress significantly reduced with the cycles (ANOVA, p<0.05) but did not show a significant change with the applied loads (ANOVA, p>0.05).