New thermomechanically treated NiTi alloys - a review

In the past 10 years, several proprietary processing procedures for nickel titanium (NiTi) alloy were developed to improve the mechanical properties of NiTi endodontic instruments. Beside specific thermal and mechanical treatments, manufacturers introduced several machining procedures (e.g. twisting, electrical discharge machining), as well as techniques for final surface finishing. NiTi alloys used for endodontic instruments can be subdivided into instruments that mainly contain the austenite phase (austenitic: conventional NiTi, M-Wire, R-Phase) and those mainly containing the martensite phase (martensitic: CM Wire, Gold and Blue heat-treated NiTi). Thermomechanically treated NiTi alloys have been reported to be more flexible with improved cyclic fatigue resistance and greater angle of deflection at failure when compared to conventional NiTi. These enhanced properties may be attributed to a modified phase composition containing varying amounts of R-phase and martensite. Endodontic instruments made of austenitic alloys possess superelastic properties because of stress-induced martensite transformation and consequently tend to spring-back to their original form after deformation. In contrast, the martensitic instruments can easily be deformed due to the reorientation of the martensite variants and show a shape memory effect when heated. The use of martensitic alloy results in more flexible instruments, with an increased cyclic fatigue resistance compared with austenitic alloy.