How to simulate wear? Overview of existing methods.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the overview is to critically analyse the contributing factors to the biological wear process and to screen the wear simulators in dentistry for their capacity to mimic the wear conditions. An overview of the types of wear, grouped as biotribocorrosion, combined with a description of the different wear simulating devices will allow us to better understand the multifactorial nature of wear.


METHODS
A search on keywords highlights the most common in-vitro wear simulators and their use in the laboratories for various simulation applications.


RESULTS
Wear is a complex process that can hardly be simulated while controlling all variables. Especially the extrapolation of the in-vitro wear results to the in-vivo situation is difficult because there is a lot of interplay with biological factors that are difficult to mimic.


CONCLUSIONS
It is not the degree of sophistication, but the right mix of controllable variables that will make a wear simulator predictive.
Lambrechts
Paul
P
Catholic University of Leuven, Department of Conservative Dentistry, BIOMAT Research Cluster, U.Z. St. Rafaël, Kapucijnenvoer 7, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. Paul.Lambrecht@med.kuleuven.be
Debels
Elke
E
Van Landuyt
Kirsten
K
Peumans
Marleen
M
Van Meerbeek
Bart
B
D003764:Dental Materials / Q000737:chemistry*; D019554:Dental Restoration Wear; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D008422:Materials Testing / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D013499:Surface Properties; D014099:Toothbrushing / Q000295:instrumentation
D003764:Dental Materials