The biaxial flexural strength and fatigue property of Lava™ Y-TZP dental ceramic

ObjectivesThe development of yttrium oxide partially stabilized zirconia (Y-TZP) has allowed the use of ceramic in load-bearing sites. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the biaxial flexural strength, hardness and fatigue life of colored and uncolored zirconia in the LAVA™ system.Materials and methodsEight groups (n = 30) of standardized disc specimens (15 mm × 1.3 mm) were used to examine the biaxial flexural strength (ISO 6872 standard) using a Dartec HC10 Fatigue Tester (Zwick Ltd., UK) and Vickers hardness was also measured. The uncolored, FS4, FS7 groups were also submitted to dynamic fatigue testing to produce stress–number curves. The strength reliability was analyzed using Weibull distribution.ResultsAll groups had a mean biaxial flexural strength, hardness and Weibull modulus (m) of approximately 1100 MPa, 1300 HV and 9.8–12.9, respectively. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed no significant difference in biaxial flexural strength among the eight groups (p > 0.05). Two-way ANOVA showed no significant differences in hardness values among groups except FS1 and FS5 which had significantly higher hardness values than FS4 and FS7 (p < 0.001) and FS5 also had a higher hardness value than FS3 (p < 0.05). Additionally, uncolored, FS4 and FS7 survived at 5 × 105 cycles at a stress level in the range of 60–65% of the mean biaxial flexural strength.ConclusionThere was no difference in flexural strength of uncolored and colored Y-TZP ceramic. The fatigue limit of uncolored, FS4 and FS7 zirconia may be defined as lying between 60 and 65% of the stress to failure.