title: Newly developed hardness testing system, "Cariotester": measurement principles and development of a program for measuring Knoop hardness of carious dentin.
abstract: We previously discovered that when a cone-shaped indenter coated with paint was pressed into an object, the paint disappeared in accordance with the depth of the indentation. Based on this fact, we developed the Cariotester, a portable system for measuring the Knoop hardness (KHN) of carious dentin. The Cariotester is composed of a handpiece with an indenter, a microscope, and a computer. In this system, the painted indenter is forced into the material with a 150-gf load, and the indentation depth (CT depth) is obtained from the paint disappearance. The CT depth by the Cariotester and the KHN by a microhardness tester were determined at 14 dentin regions. From the data, a program was created to convert the CT depth of the carious dentin into the KHN. As a result, if the CT depth is measured with this system, the KHN of carious dentin can be displayed in real time.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dentistry and Oral Surgery, Hyogo College of Medicine, Mukogawa-cho, Nishinomiya, Hyogo 663-8501, Japan. shimizu@diary.ocn.ne.jp
authors.forename: Akihiko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shimizu
authors.forename: Syozi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nakashima
authors.forename: Toru
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nikaido
authors.forename: Toyotaro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sugawara
authors.forename: Takatsugu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
authors.forename: Yasuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Momoi
mesh_terms: D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D003626:Data Display; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000473:pathology*; D003737:Dental Cavity Preparation / Q000379:methods; D003799:Dental Stress Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation; D003804:Dentin / Q000473:pathology*; D004867:Equipment Design; D006244:Hardness; D006801:Humans; D008838:Microcomputers; D008853:Microscopy / Q000295:instrumentation