Design optimization of functionally graded dental implant for bone remodeling

Despite a great success, one of the key issues facing in dental implantation clinic is a mismatch of mechanical properties between engineered and native biomaterials, which makes osseointegration and bone remodeling problematical. Functionally Graded Material (FGM) has been proposed as a potential upgrade to some conventional implant materials like titanium for selection in prosthetic dentistry. The idea of FGM dental implant is that the property would vary in a certain pattern to match the biomechanical characteristics required at different regions in the hosting bone. However, mating properties do not necessarily guarantee the best osseointegration and bone remodeling. No existing report has been available to develop an optimal design of FGM dental implant for promoting a long-term success. This paper aims to explore this critical issue by using the computational bone remodeling and design optimization. A buccal–lingual sectional model, which consists of a single unit implant and four other adjacent teeth, was constructed from computerized tomography (CT) scan images. Bone remodeling induced by use of various FGM dental implants is calculated over the period of 4 years. Based upon remodeling results, response surface method (RSM) is adopted to develop a multi-objective optimal design for FGM implantation FGM designs.