title: Measurement of the fatigue life of mini dental implants: a pilot study.
abstract: The fatigue life of mini or small-diameter dental implants is of particular interest because these implants are used to retain and support fixed and removable dental prostheses. The fatigue life of an implant depends on both the implant itself as well as on the physical properties of the bone. However, the capability to predict the fatigue life of a newly placed implant is currently inexistent. This pilot study represents the first step in developing such a methodology and focuses on the design of a cost-effective device to measure the fatigue life of a dental implant. In our measurements, the implant has been mounted in an essentially rigid support, but test specimens can also be bone mounted in vitro. Furthermore, we developed a finite element-based computer model capable of predicting the corresponding fatigue life. The finite element analysis was performed in ABAQUS, and the results predicted by the model correlated fairly well with our initial experimental results. Most of the 2-mm diameter implants fractured after more than a million cycles.
authors.affiliation: dffdds@charter.net
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Flanagan
authors.forename: Horea
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ilies
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: McCullough
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McQuoid
mesh_terms: D001732:Bite Force; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003758:Dental Implantation, Endosseous; D015921:Dental Implants; D017267:Dental Prosthesis Design; D019232:Dental Restoration Failure; D003799:Dental Stress Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D008904:Miniaturization; D010865:Pilot Projects
chemical_list: D015921:Dental Implants