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Project

Additive CAD/CAM of monolithic zirconia for dental restorations

ZIRCONIA ceramics have been booming for the last ten years to produce metal-free dental crowns and bridges, thanks to the excellent mechanical properties and the CAD/CAM production process. Current dental CAD/CAM technologies subtractively mill the ceramic blocks, wasting a large amount of material and introducing machining defects. Alternatively, ADDITIVE manufacturing, i.e. 3D-printing, as the manufacturing technology of the future, can address an optimized use of material and should be perfectly suitable to produce fixed dental prostheses that need individual customization. Moreover, dental zirconia is today trending to MONOLITHIC zirconia without porcelain veneer, since zirconia has shown the potential of being translucent along with the benefit that monolithic TOOTH RESTORATIONS avoid the clinical issue of porcelain chipping. This project therefore targets the development of monolithic zirconia with regard to its optical appearance and 3D-printing capability. We aim at (1) optimizing the ceramic stereolithography process to produce dental zirconia ceramic components that have sufficient mechanical properties, (2) synthesizing zirconia ceramics with higher translucency and various colour shades, and (3) investigating the clinical capability of monolithic zirconia in terms of surface quality, geometrical precision and ageing risk. Such timely 3D-printing of monolithic ceramics is expected to contribute to the further digitalization of dental restorative procedures.

Date:1 Oct 2017 →  30 Sep 2020
Keywords:monolitisch zirconium tandrestauraties
Disciplines:Biological system engineering, Biomaterials engineering, Biomechanical engineering, Medical biotechnology, Other (bio)medical engineering