Silane effects on luting resin bond to a Ni-Cr alloy

This study investigates the effect of a silane coupling agent on the shear bond strength of four commercially available resin luting systems (two of which rely on mechanical retention and two which have a chemical bond to metal) when bonding a prepared Ni-Cr alloy to etched bovine enamel. Silane application reduced the bond strengths of the two chemically adhesive resins and increased the bond strength of one of the mechanically retained resins. For the other mechanically retained resin, silane application did not significantly increase the bond strength but the plane of fracture changed from resin/metal to resin/enamel: from this an increase in metal resin bond strength can be inferred.