Calculation of the shrinkage-induced residual stress in a viscoelastic dental restorative material

A procedure able to describe the curing process of a particulate composite material used in a dental restoration is developed in the ANSYS environment. The material under concern is a multifunctional methacrylate-based composite for dental restoration, activated by visible light. The model accounts for the dependence of the viscoelastic functions on temperature and degree of cure. Three geometries have been considered in the analysis that are representative of three different classes of dental restoration and mainly differ by the C (constrained)-factor, (i.e. the bounded to unbounded surface ratio). It was found that the temperature could give a necrosis in the vicinity of the tooth nerve and that the average stress at the interface between the composite and the tooth scales exponentially with the C-factor. The residual stress at the dental restoration interface is also compared with the uniaxial tensile strength of twelve commercially available composite materials: it clearly appears that the level of residual stress may overcome the strength of the composite, especially at high C-factors.