Fracture behaviour of teeth with conventional and mini-invasive access cavity designs

Presented work is targeted toward fracture analysis of endodontically treated human teeth. Three sets of teeth were loaded by compression simulating natural loading conditions. For this purpose, each tooth was mounted into the resin in the axis angle declination of 30° and kept all the time in saline up to the moment of test to simulate the intraoral environment. Two access cavity designs - mini-invasive (conservative) and conventional (traditional), were analysed. Fracture behaviour of treated teeth with mini-invasive access was compared with conventional and with the intact set of teeth. Complex monitoring of the fracture process together with loading traces enables to characterise typical fracture features and crack propagation schemes. The extensive fractographic analysis reveals the effect of adhesive bonding on the crack propagation. Also, fracture initiation and damage accumulation were identified. The quality of newly developed mini-invasive design in comparison with the conventional one was proved.