[Stress profile during curing contraction of composite resin adhesives]

The wall-to-wall curing contraction of thin composite resin layers was recorded with a tensometer. The composite resin was applied to cylindrically shaped ceramic sample holders with diameters of 3 mm, 4 mm and 8 mm. The distances of the sample holders was set at 50 microns, 100 microns, 150 microns, 200 microns and 300 microns. The shrinkage stress recordings clearly show that the shrinkage forces are governed by the distance of the sample holders and not by the volume or the configuration factor of the composite resin layers.