In designing an implantable tooth, ie. a tooth that directly interfaces with you

Question

In designing an implantable tooth, ie. a tooth that directly interfaces with your jaw bone) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_implant):

a). What are your design constraints anatomically, physiologically, and aesthetically?

b). What materials (you will need more than one – consider the tooth, the root, etc…) would you envision using in your implantable tooth? Why (justify in terms of specific material properties)?

c). What type of material processing would be needed to create your design? For instance, if you use titanium screws, how would these be made?

d). What are the primary modes of dental implant failure (look up on internet)?

Explanation / Answer

a)Oral environment is highly corrosive environment and over to it forces of varying nature acts acts which arises due to mastication or chewing of food. Apart from this any foreign material to be introduced in human body needs to be biocompatible and the modulus of material should be nearly equivalent to that of human bone else an effect called Stress Shielding will occur and this will eventually result in adjacent bone degeneration,as Wolf law states that bone remodels with application of load. Since we are looking for a tooth implant it should mimic exactly the natural teeth and the crown should be exactly as identical to the natural one. These are the major constraints which needs to be looked while designing dental implants.

B) Any material to be used for human body needs to be biocompatible and should pass the tests per ISO 10993. Since it is long term interaction additional terms in ISO 10993 needs to be performed. Materials normally used for dental application includes Stainless Stella, Titanium Alloys, Gold is used sometimes as coating for the crown part. Usually these days a lot of coating in form of Titanium carbide is provided which ensures longevity of the implant. Also ceramics are widely used for dental applications. A good amount of reliability testing is required to ensure use of best available medical grade material.

C) Dental implants are highly precised and machining is the ideal way to create dental implants. The tolerances needs to be strictly defined for such implants. Currently, modern 3D printers are capable of creating 3 D implants from metal powders are also under experimentation.

D) Primary reasons for failure insides corrosion,overloading stress shielding,foreign body reaction and allergy

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse I
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.