Evaluation of different dental materials using a slugging fluidized bed

The wear of the dental restorative material is often a critical concern when selecting a material for a given clinical restorative treatment. A simple but reliable special method was proposed to test the wear rate of dental materials in a gas-solid fluidized bed under a slugging operation regime. Different dental materials were made in the same molar crown shape and suspended in fluidized bed where wear was created by particle movement. The wear rate of the dental materials was determined by accurately weighing each sample after being exposed to fluidized particles under room temperature conditions in a column 0.76 mm in diameter. The influence of the size of the abrasive particles and the particle velocities on the specimen's wear rate was investigated to provide some scientific insight into the observed wear phenomena. The wear resistance of a few main types of dental materials was also compared under a base operating condition. Results show that this novel wear tester can not only provide a relative comparison on the wear rates of different dental restorative materials, but also produce fairly accurate absolute values of the wear rates in line with clinical studies.