Dental implant is an artificial dental root that is used to construct dental restorations, similar to the original teeth, in order to regain the function of missing teeth of patients experiencing tooth loss. At the interface between the jawbone and the roots of natural teeth, a thin, elastic, shock absorbing tissue, called the periodontal ligament (PDL), forms a cushion which provides certain mobility to the natural teeth. The restorations supported by dental implants, however, involve completely rigid structures. This causes overloading of the implant while bearing functional loading together with neighboring natural teeth, which leads to high local stresses within the implant system and in the jawbone.
The aim of this thesis study was to develop a novel dental implant model involving resilient components in the upper structure (abutment) in order to mimic the mechanical behavior of the PDL. Within the scope of the study, a complete mechanical design of a new dental implant model was made. The proposed model was optimized based on the design objectives by using Finite Element Method. The optimal design was verified to overcome the problem of loosening of the abutment screw (a common complication in previous designs), yield very similar axial mobility behavior as that of a natural tooth and withstand biomechanical loads without failure. In addition, as a support of a dental bridge in combination with a natural tooth, the proposed design was demonstrated to provide uniform load sharing with the natural tooth and substantially reduced magnitude of peak stresses within the construction, compared to a rigid counterpart.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12614039/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| Creators | Pektas, Omer |
| Contributors | Tonuk, Ergin |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | Access forbidden for 1 year |
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