Development of 3D Slurry Printing Technology with Submersion-Light Apparatus in Dental Application.

This study proposes an innovative three-dimensional printing technology with submersion-light apparatus. A zirconia powder with an average particle size of 0.5 µm is mixed with 1,6-Hexanediol diacrylate (HDDA) and photo-initiator to form a slurry. The weight percentage of zirconia powder to HDDA is 70:30 wt.%. A light engine box is submerged in a slurry and emits a layered pattern to induce photopolymerization and transform a slurry into a printed green body. Green body sintering parameters for the first and second stages are 380 °C with a holding time of 1.5 h and 1550 °C with a holding time of 2 h. The sintered parts' length, width, and height shrinkage ratios are 29.9%, 29.7%, and 30.6%. The ball milling decreases the powder particle size to 158 ± 16 nm and the mean grain size of the sintered part is 423 ± 25 nm. The sintered part has an average hardness of 1224 (HV), a density of 5.45 g/cm3, and a flexural strength of 641.04 MPa. A three-unit zirconia dental bridge also has been fabricated with a clinically acceptable marginal gap.

Dental implant customization using numerical optimization design and 3-dimensional printing fabrication of zirconia ceramic.

This study proposes a new methodology for dental implant customization consisting of numerical geometric optimization and 3-dimensional printing fabrication of zirconia ceramic. In the numerical modeling, exogenous factors for implant shape include the thread pitch, thread depth, maximal diameter of implant neck, and body size. Endogenous factors are bone density, cortical bone thickness, and non-osseointegration. An integration procedure, including uniform design method, Kriging interpolation and genetic algorithm, is applied to optimize the geometry of dental implants. The threshold of minimal micromotion for optimization evaluation was 100 µm. The optimized model is imported to the 3-dimensional slurry printer to fabricate the zirconia green body (powder is bonded by polymer weakly) of the implant. The sintered implant is obtained using a 2-stage sintering process. Twelve models are constructed according to uniform design method and simulated the micromotion behavior using finite element modeling. The result of uniform design models yields a set of exogenous factors that can provide the minimal micromotion (30.61 µm), as a suitable model. Kriging interpolation and genetic algorithm modified the exogenous factor of the suitable model, resulting in 27.11 µm as an optimization model. Experimental results show that the 3-dimensional slurry printer successfully fabricated the green body of the optimization model, but the accuracy of sintered part still needs to be improved. In addition, the scanning electron microscopy morphology is a stabilized t-phase microstructure, and the average compressive strength of the sintered part is 632.1 MPa.

Application of uniform design to improve dental implant system.

This paper introduces the application of uniform experimental design to improve dental implant systems subjected to dynamic loads. The dynamic micromotion of the Zimmer dental implant system is calculated and illustrated by explicit dynamic finite element analysis. Endogenous and exogenous factors influence the success rate of dental implant systems. Endogenous factors include: bone density, cortical bone thickness and osseointegration. Exogenous factors include: thread pitch, thread depth, diameter of implant neck and body size. A dental implant system with a crest module was selected to simulate micromotion distribution and stress behavior under dynamic loads using conventional and proposed methods. Finally, the design which caused minimum micromotion was chosen as the optimal design model. The micromotion of the improved model is 36.42 µm, with an improvement is 15.34% as compared to the original model.

Design improvement and dynamic finite element analysis of novel ITI dental implant under dynamic chewing loads.

The main aim of this article was to introduce the application of a uniform design for experimental methods to drop the micromotion of a novel ITI dental implant model under the dynamic loads. Combining the characteristics of the traditional ITI and Nano-Tite implants, a new implant with concave holes has been constructed. Compared to the traditional ITI dental implant model, the micromotion of the new dental implant model was significantly reduced by explicit dynamic finite element analysis. From uniform design of experiments, the dynamic finite element analysis method was applied to caluculated the maximum micromotion of the full model. Finally, the chief design in all the experiment simulations which cause the minimum micromotion is picked as the advanced model of the design. Related to the original design, which was associated with a micromotion of 45.11 µm, the micromotion of the improved version was 31.37 µm, for an improvement rate of 30.5%.