3rd Year Dental Materials Science

Dr. Graham Cross

School of Physics and CRANN
SFI Nanoscience Building, Rm 1.5

http://www.tcd.ie/Physics/People/Graham.Cross/

Graham.Cross@tcd.ie

16.11.2007 Dental Materials - Graham Cross 1

 Topics

Oct. 26: Basic metallurgy and alloys

Nov. 2: Properties of materials, thermals
Nov. 16: Mechanics of solids and fluids
Textbooks – Further Reading

Applied Dental Materials – 8 th Edition 1998, John F. McCabe, Angus W. G. Walls,

Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
• Restorative Dental Materials – 10th Edition 1997 Editor Robert G. Craig, Mosby – Year
Book, Inc, St. Louis, USA
• Notes on Dental Materials – 6th Edition 1992 Editor E.C. Combe, Churchill Livingstone,
Edinburgh, UK
• Phillip’s Science of Dental Materials – 10th Edition 1996, Editor Kenneth J. Arusavice,
W.B. Saunders Company Philadelphia, USA
• Dental Materials, Properties and Manipulation – 6th Edition 1996 Editors Robert G. Craig,
William J. O’Brien, John M. Power, Mosby – Year Book, Inc, St. Louis, USA

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 Mechanical properties of materials

• Stress and strain

• Elasticity and viscosity: Solids vs. fluids

• Rheology and Plasticity

• Viscoelasticity

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 Solids vs. liquids

• We all understand generally what the difference between

solid and a liquid is, but in practice this difference can be
blurred..
• A very general distinction is this:
• Elastic behaviour
When you apply and then remove a force, fast or
slow, the object returns to its original shape!
• Inelastic behaviour (flow)
When you apply and remove a force, the shape of
the object is permanently changed.
How can we understand the reaction of materials to forces
independently of the geometry of the tested object?
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 Stress
• Stress is the force per unit area applied to an object:

Force • Units = N/m2 or Pascals (Pa)

σ= • Also: 1 bar = 101.3 kPa
Area • 1 MPa = 106 Pa
• Different ways of applying stress, over a surface:
Compressive Tensile Shear

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 Adhesion

• Adhesion may be defined simply as a force interaction

between two materials at an interface where they are in
contact.
• Failure occurs at a critical stress level

Interface must support a solely tensile load:

Mechanical Chemical

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 Area of contact and stress

• Adhesive strength depends on true contact area limited by

roughness:

Chemical Adhesion

• Rough surfaces mean small contact area, so a small force makes a large stress
at local points on surface, causing failure
• Polishing a surface to make it smooth increases area and reduces stress

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 Strain
• Strain ε is a measure of the change in dimension of an
object that occurs by the application of stress.
• It is defined as a relative displacement:

dl
ε=
l

Different kinds of
strain

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 Stress vs. strain curve

A principle way to characterize mechanical properties of solid materials.

Many properties can be Stress

determined from it: σ
• Elastic modulus
• Tensile strength
• Yield strength
• Ductility
• Resilience Strain ε

• Fracture toughness • This is an intrinsic signature of a material

• Why would a force vs. displacement curve
not be?

See: Applied Dental Materials – 8th Edition 1998, John F. McCabe, Angus W. G. Walls, Chapter 2.

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 Elasticity

• Reversible stretching,
compression, or deforming of a
body Stress
σ
• In the linear elastic range,
the ratio of stress to strain is
called a modulus

σ = Eε εlimit
Strain ε

εlimit = 0.02 Ceramics/Metals • Different modulus are defined for

= 0.1 Polymer glasses different types of deformation:
> 5 Some elastomers! • Young’s modulus
• Shear modulus
• Bulk modulus
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 Elastic Modulus

Before

After

Polystyrene: Bulk Young’s Shear

B=10 GPa E=3 GPa G=1 GPa

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 Shear strain

• Shear strain γ is a skew: it changes shape, not volume.

• Very important when we consider flow.
dy
γ≡
h
Shear strain rate:
h
d γ dy h dy dt
= =
dt dt h
dγ vy
=
dt h
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 Simple fluid flow

• Consider fluid between to

large plates of area A: x
h
• What shear stress τ must be y

applied between the two plates

to get vy? Shear Force Force
τ=
Area
vy velocity
• Newton’s law of fluid flow: in y direction
Shear stress τ is proportional to the
flow velocity gradient normal to
flow: v dγ
τ∝ y
= NB: Fluid velocity at walls is
h dt zero with respect to wall
Stress is proportional to shear strain rate! (Fluid “sticks” to the walls)

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 Why shear is important for flow
Force
between
atoms
Bonding energy

Repulsive

Distance of separation

Difficult!
Attractive
• Compressive/tensile stress:
- Changing the distance of separation
of atoms is difficult (volume change)
• Shear stress:
- Changing neighbours between atoms
is much easier (shape change)

Easy! A liquid changes shape, not volume, freely

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 Solid vs. Liquid
Energy
solid Position

(Low Temperature)

Atoms deep vacancy

in energy well

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 Solid vs. Liquid
Energy
solid Position

(Low Temperature)

Atoms deep vacancy

in energy well

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 Solid vs. Liquid
Energy
solid Position

(Low Temperature)

Atoms deep vacancy

in energy well

liquid Energy
Position

(High Temperature)

Atoms can hop

over energy
barrier!
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 Viscosity
• Viscosity η describes the Force
way momentum is transferred
by a fluid during flow

• For simple fluids it is a

constant of proportionality
Viscosity η
between shear stress and Fluid
Pa s
shear rate (Newton): Air 0.00018

dγ
τ∝ Water 0.0089

dt Mercury 0.015

dγ η Units: Pa s
τ =η
Honey 100
(Poise)
dt Glass 1040 (?)

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 Rheology
• Study of the flow of all materials, including
solids and complex liquids such as polymer
melts, colloids, suspensions, slurries, pastes,
etc.

• Consider a complex fluid, a polymer melt:

What happens when you shear this material?

• Molecules both flow and they change their

shape… they “relax”

• Gives rise to both shear rate (dγ/dt) and time

dependent behaviour.

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 Time dependent material response

• Due to mechanical reasons such as relaxation time of

constitutive particles in transient (ie. non-steady) flows

• Or due to chemical reasons such as setting times

• Usually viscosity will be used to measure this:

Initial low viscosity for dispensing and moulding

Followed by large increase in viscosity during setting

Working time – time the material can be easily manipulated

Setting time – time at which viscosity goes very high
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 Viscosity and setting time of pastes

Viscosity
η

Time t Time t Time t

• Poor rheological properties • Ideal rheological properties • Good rheological properties

- no well defined setting time - long working time - long working time
- sudden setting time - reasonable setting time

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 Shear rate dependent flow
Fluids: Instead of a stress vs. strain curve, we plot a stress vs. strain rate curve

Newtonian linear fluid a) Dilatant

dγ
τ =η b) Pseudoplastic (shear thinning)
dt

Shear Shear
Stress Stress
τ τ b

dγ dγ
Shear rate Shear rate
dt dt
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 Plasticity: flow of solids

• Ductile behaviour of a solid

that occurs above a special
Shear Stress
shear stress threshold called τ
the “yield stress”: τyield
τyield
• This occurs for many metals
and glassy polymers

• Ceramic materials tend to

fracture, not yield
Strain ε Ductility

Like a liquid, plastic flow of solids involves shape change, not volume change

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 Shearing a solid: Plastic flow
Energy solid
Position

sheared solid
Energy
Position

Stress, not temperature,

increases the energy level One line of atoms changes neighbours
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 Viscoelasticity

• Response of materials with both

elastic and viscous character:
time dependent
• Eg. Elastomers

• Two important forms:

• Creep
• Stress relaxation

• Visualized by combining mechanical components of

• Springs (elastic): instant response to stress
• Dash-pots (viscous): slow response
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 Creep

• Time dependent dimensional change of materials under constant

stress.

Stress
σ
•Eg. Weight of a gold filling,
effect on elastomer padding
0
layer
Strain

• Important for dental

amalgams: σ
- Melting temperature is close
to room temperature
- Teeth clenching
- Creep may be precursor to
fracture at filling edge. Time

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 Stress relaxation

When a viscoelastic material is under

constant strain a gradual reduction Stress
in stress can occur σ

• Eg. Dental waxes, resins, and gels

• Manipulate into shape, then stress
drops over time
• This can, in turn, lead to dimensional
changes on other surrounding loaded
structures.

For more examples, see:

Applied Dental Materials – 8th Edition 1998, John
F. McCabe, Angus W. G. Walls, Blackwell, Oxford,
UK. Time t

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