Fracture strength of dental amalgams restoring exclusively proximal Elderton and Almquist cavity preparations

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate under experimental conditions the influence of six different brands of dental amalgam, exclusively in proximal cavity preparations (proposed by Elderton and Almquist and associates) on failure characteristics of these "restored dice" teeth. The volume of amalgam contained in each cavity was also calculated. The static "masticatory force" was applied through a small steel-ball (2.5 mm) in order to cause the failure of the amalgam condensed in a cavity on prepared Ni-Cr dice. No statistical significance at 0.05 level was observed for the variables (two types of cavity and six amalgam alloys), considering that the cavity design proposed by Elderton has a volume of material about 18.35% smaller than the Almquist one.