Factors influencing the creep of dental amalgam

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of relevant microstructural and compositional factors on the creep of 12 representative dental amalgams by means of stepwise multiple linear regression. The independent variables accepted by the regression were volume percent of the eta' (Cu6Sn5) phase, grain size of the gamma 1 (Ag2Hg3) phase, volume percent of the gamma (Ag3Sn) plus epsilon (Cu3Sn) phases, number of very small eta' crystals (less than 1.5 microns) per mm, and weight percent of Hg. The results of this regression showed an adjusted R2 of 0.949, significant at p = 0.002.