Measurement of the elastic modulus of dental pieces

Understanding the mechanical properties of human teeth is important to clin ical tooth preparation and to the development of restorative materials. Par ticularly, the elastic modulus of materials used in restoration of dental p arts subjected to endodontic treatment must be compatible with the original tooth. The major difficulty to measure mechanical properties of biological materials is, in general, the geometry of the specimen. Actually, even whe n there are different methodologies to determine the elastic modulus, sampl es with flat and parallel facts of uniform section are usually required. De ntal parts not only do not fulfil this condition, but also constitute a com posite material formed essentially by enamel and dentin with quite differen t elastic moduli. In this work the elastic moduli of canine and pre-molar t eeth, measured by using piezoelectric excitation at high frequency, an pres ented. The measuring procedure considers the tooth as a composite, that is, gives a mean value according to the complex distribution of enamel and den tin in the different cross-sections of the specimen. Results are compared w ith Young's modulus of enamel and dentin obtained by indentation techniques . (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.