Isothermal phase transformations of a dental porcelain.

Objectives: The purpose of this investigation was to determine if the change in the leucite weight fraction during an isothermal heat treatment could be estimated by observing the deformation of PFM strips in a high-heating-rate, computer-controlled bending beam viscometer (BBV).

Methods: Specimens of a commercial body porcelain were fired according to the manufacturer's instructions-50 disk specimens for quantitative X-ray diffraction (XRD) and 100 bimaterial strip specimens for BBV. The XRD specimens were annealed at temperatures between 650 and 1000 degrees C, and leucite weight fraction was measured using an alumina internal standard.

Evidence of a critical leucite particle size for microcracking in dental porcelains.

The leucite particles in dental porcelains are often partially encircled by microcracks that are the result of the thermal expansion mismatch between leucite and the surrounding glass matrix. Although the magnitude of the stress at the particle-matrix interface is independent of the particle size (Selsing, 1961), Davidge and Green (1968) showed experimentally that there is a critical particle size below which microcracking is absent. The critical particle size is explained by a Griffith-type energy balance criterion: Below the critical size, the stress magnitude may be sufficient to cause cracking, but there is insufficient strain energy for the creation of the new surfaces of the microcrack.

High-temperature X-ray diffraction measurement of sanidine thermal expansion.

Dental porcelains that are designed to be fused to PFM (porcelain-fused-to-metal) alloys are formulated by their manufacturers to be closely matched in thermal expansion to these alloys. The high thermal expansion of the mineral leucite has been exploited to regulate porcelain expansion. Leucite, however, has been observed to convert to the sanidine polymorph of feldspar during certain heat treatments within the normal firing range of dental porcelain.

Elimination, via high-rate laser dilatometry, of structural relaxation during thermal expansion measurement of dental porcelains.

Objectives: Thermal expansion measurement of glassy materials is complicated by thermal history effects. Excess volume--trapped in quenched dental porcelains after firing--collapses via structural relaxation on first slow heating during conventional dilatometry, making the thermal expansion coefficient (alpha) obtained on first heating unreliable. The purpose of this study was to determine whether porcelain thermal expansion measurement at high thermal rates could minimize the influence of thermal history.

Cyclic fatigue of a model feldspathic porcelain.

Objectives: This study was conducted to evaluate the fatigue parameters of a model porcelain based on the Weinstein patent using cyclic fatigue and to compare the parametric values obtained from cyclic fatigue tests with those from dynamic fatigue tests previously reported by Fairhurst et al. (1993).

Methods: Cyclical biaxial flexure of 1 mm thick and 12 mm diameter disks was performed at 37 degrees C in distilled water at a frequency of 4 Hz with constant stressing rates between a minimum and maximum stress.