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Effect of dental implant diameter on fatigue performance. Part I: mechanical behavior
Keren Shemtov-Yona1, Daniel Rittel, Liran Levin
1Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
Aim:
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of the implants' diameter on the mechanical function and load-fatigue performance of dental implants.
Materials And Methods:
Three groups of implants with different diameters (3.3 mm, 3.75 mm and 5 mm), were tested under static and cyclic compressive loading. A total number of 15 implants for the static test and 112 implants for the cyclic-fatigue test. In the cyclic test, the machine ceased operating when the structure collapsed or when it reached 5 × 10(6) cycles without apparent failure. The load versus the number of cycles was plotted as curves for biomechanical analysis (S-N curve) for each implant diameter.
Results:
The S-N curve plotted for the 5 mm implants showed classic fatigue behavior with a finite life region starting from 620N. The same was observed for the 3.75 mm diameter implants, with a finite life region starting below 620N. By contrast, the 3.3 mm diameter implants failed to show predictable fatigue behavior and a fatigue limit could not be defined.
Conclusions:
The results of this study emphasize the importance of implant diameter on fatigue behavior. Narrow implants failed to show typical fatigue behavior which might be attributed to the implant design.
