Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (11) (2016) 4919~4923

www.springerlink.com/content/1738-494x(Print)/1976-3824(Online)
DOI 10.1007/s12206-016-1011-y

Finite element stress analysis of functionally graded dental implant of

a premolar tooth†
S. Kamal Jalali1,*, Reza Yarmohammadi2 and Fatemeh Maghsoudi3
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kermanshah University of Technology, Kermanshah, Iran
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shahid Chamran University, Ahvaz, Iran
3
School of Dentistry, Kermanshah University of Medical Science, Kermanshah, Iran

(Manuscript Received December 27, 2015; Revised June 8, 2016; Accepted July 28, 2016)

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Abstract

Tooth is one of the most important parts of the body in terms of beauty and eating and the use of implants is considered as the most
familiar strategies to deal with being edentulous. Unfortunately, the implants may break and this brings secondary problems. The present
study aims to determine the stress distribution in dentures through finite elements analysis. In order to reduce stress concentration in the
implant, Functionally graded materials (FGM) that their mechanical properties change gradually and continuously, were used. These
changes are made from hydroxyapatite to titanium. It is observed that the stress concentration is significantly reduced.
Keywords: Functionally graded materials; Implant; Tooth; Stress concentration
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and diameter on the tooth stability. The results indicated that

1. Introduction
with increasing implants length and diameter, better stress
Human has always been involved with teeth and their prob- distribution was achieved. Hernandez et al. [7] investigated on
lems and has done his best to expand their functionality. Dis- failure in dental implants. Their examination indicated that
covery of high titanium engraftment with jaw bone led to the suddenly change geometry caused the failure of components.
invention of modern dental implantology. Introducing of finite Functionally graded materials (FGM) are a group of com-
element method and development of the associated commer- posite materials whose properties vary continuously from one
cial softwares accelerated the engineering-wise studies on this side to another [8, 9]. The concept of FGM was first intro-
subject. Djebbar et al. [1] analyzed the force direction effect duced by a group of material scientists in Japan at 1984 [10].
on implants and abutments stress distribution. Their examina- Recently, application FGM in dental application was reported.
tions indicated that the non-perpendicular forces on tooth cre- Mehrali et al. [11] considered FGM implants to study the ef-
ate high stress concentrations. Hernandez and Contreras [2] fect of implants stability on stress reduction. This study was
investigated stress analysis in broken implants and found that conducted to decrease Young’s modulus mismatch between
a sudden geometrical change was the main reason for the the implant and jaw bone. They observed that through func-
breakages. Hisam et al. [3] investigated the stress distribution tionalizing the screw, the stresses significantly decreased. Al-
on premolar teeth implants. They found that higher degree of Maqtari et al. [12] designed a thin layer between abutment and
osseointegration caused higher stress but lower strain. Pietro et crown that its features changed gradually. Then, they pre-
al. [4] reported that instability and lack of convenient installa- sented an optimal model for the changes of properties in this
tion of implants on bone were the most important causes of intermediate layer. Rahbar et al. [13] designed a thin layer
implants failure. They concluded that the screw geometry was between dental-like polymer and ceramic core. Their exami-
highly crucial in implant stability. Möhlhenrich et al. [5] in- nation indicated that this method can reduce the stress and
vestigated implant stability in different bone densities by vary- increase the critical crack length. Sadollah et al. [14] divided
ing implant geometry. They found that the diameter of an an implant to 10 parts with different and graded mechanical
implant has greater influence on the stability than length. El- properties and found optimum gradient material for dental
zavaheri et al. [6] investigated the effect of implants length implants. In the present study, the finite element analysis of
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 9197398314, Fax.: +98 8337259980
FGM implants has been studied using commercial COMSOL
E-mail address: skjalali@ut.ac.kr Multiphysics software for the possibility of stress concentra-
†
Recommended by Associate Editor Haeseung Chung tion reduction in different components of dentures.
© KSME & Springer 2016
4920 S. K. Jalali et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (11) (2016) 4919~4923

Table 1. Mechanical properties of parts.

Component E Density
v Ref
(Material) [GPa] [Kg/m3]
Crown
218 0.33 8800 [15]
(Cr-alloy Co)
Abutment
110 0.30 4500 [15]
(Titanium)
(a) (b) (c)
Implant
110 0.30 4500 [15]
Fig. 1. Geometric model of denture: (a) Crown; (b) implant and abut- (Titanium)
ment; (c) jaw bone. Jaw bone
14.5 0.33 1700 [15]
(Cortical bone)
2. Modeling and materials Jaw bone
1.37 0.30 270 [15]
(Cancellous bon)
2.1 Geometric modeling
HAP
40 0.27 3219 [16]
(Hydroxyapatite)
The selected implant in this study is a commercial implant
called Strawman. Geometric modeling is done in SolidWorks
software. The model consists of three parts of implant, abut-
ment and crown. The implant length and diameter are 13.2
mm and 3.5 mm, respectively and the implant is threaded in
order to stimulate the adjacent tooth to perform ossification.
Abutment has been screwed into the implant and the external
diameter of abutment is 4.69 mm. The crown is of premolar
type and it has been attempted to consider the real shape of the
tooth. The implant is completely located within the jawbone.
The jawbone is considered to be comprised of two parts with
different mechanical properties. The cortical bone thickness is
2 mm that is located above the cancellous section with the
thickness of 18 mm and area section of 225 mm2 (Fig. 1). (a) (b)

Fig. 2. Direction of applied loads to the denture: (a) Distal-mesial load

2.2 Mechanical properties of parts direction; (b) cornal-apical load direction.

Mechanical properties selected for the model parts, match

with the materials which are used for manufacturing commer-
cials dentures. Abutments and implants are made of titanium
alloys while the crowns are made of cobalt-chrome alloy. For
functional grading, hydroxyapatite has been used. All the ma-
terials considered linear elastic and isotropic. The mechanical
properties of the parts [15, 16] have been listed in Table 1.
ally from one side to the other. In this study, the implant and
the abutment are considered as FGMs. Mathematically, many
function may be selected, however, it needs to also notice to
ability of manufacturing process. The implant and abutment
properties change from hydroxyapatite to titanium using a
simple power law as follows:

E(y) = (Et - Eh) (y/h)k + Eh (1)

2.3 Finite element analysis
For finite element analysis, the components are meshed
with four-sided elements. In overall, 486945 elements are
defined to discretize the solution domain. The bottom surface
of cancellous bone lacks the ability to translate and rotate in
all directions and the interfaces between all the parts of model
are treated as perfectly bonded interfaces. An occlusal load of
10 MPa in coronal–apical direction and 3 MPa in mesial–
distal direction were applied to the top surface of the crown
[15], as shown in Fig. 2.
2.4 FGM implant
FGMs are the materials that their properties change gradu-
v(y) = (vt - vh) (y/h)k + vh (2)
where h indicates the total length of implant and abutment, y is
the coordinate along the length of implant and abutment while
y = 0 is located at the lowest point of implant inside the jaw
bone. Et, Eh, vt and vh present the Young’s modulus and the
Poison’s ratio of titanium and hydroxyapatite, respectively.
The parameter k is introduced to control the grading function
as a power law. When k = 0, the implant and abutment are
fully made of titanium. When k = 1, the property changes are
linear. Generally, when k increases, the total amount of tita-
nium decreases and finally when k = ∞, it is fully made of
hydroxyapatite. Fig. 3 visualize changes in Young’s modulus
for the linear changes (k = 1).
 S. K. Jalali et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (11) (2016) 4919~4923 4921

Table 2. Maximum stress in different component.

Coronal-apical load Distal-mesial load

Component
(MPa) (MPa)
Crown 29 23.7
Implant 68.7 97.2
Cortical bone 16.3 49
Cancellous bone 36.4 35.9

(a) (b)

Fig. 5. Stress in crown (a) coronal–apical load direction; (b) distal-

mesial load direction.

Fig. 3. Linear change of Young’s modulus in functional mode.

(a) (b)

Fig. 6. Stress in implant and abutment (a) coronal–apical load direc-

tion; (b) distal-mesial load direction.

Fig. 4. Comparison of Von-Misses stress in the titanium implant. (a) (b)

Fig. 7. Stress in cortical bone (a) coronal-apical load direction; (b)

3. Results and discussion
3.1 Validation study
To validate the model, in Fig. 4 the Von-Misses stress in
implant obtained from the present model is compared with
those reported in Ref. [15] having similar loadings conditions.
For possibility of comparison, implant and abutment are con-
sidered to be made of titanium (k = 0). As can be seen, results
agree well. The slight difference is due to possible differences
in the geometry of models. Table 2 lists the maximum Von
Mises stresses in different parts of the model. Also, Figs. 5-7
present the distribution of stresses in the crown, the implant
and cortical bone, respectively.
distal-mesial load direction.
3.2 FGM implants
In this section, the properties of implant and abutment are
considered to change gradually. The comparison of results
between linear functionalized mode (k = 1) and non-
functionalized mode (k = 0) has been presented in Fig. 8. It is
seen that gradual changes in properties can significantly de-
creases the maximum stress in all parts especially the implant
and abutment.
Finally, the influence of the FGM parameter, k, on the
stresses is studied in Figs. 9-12. One can see that increasing k
decreases maximum stresses of implant and cortical bone,
4922 S. K. Jalali et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (11) (2016) 4919~4923
Fig. 8. Comparison of results in linear functionalized mode and non-
functionalized mode.
Fig. 9. Changing stress in crown with respect to k.
Fig. 10. Changing stress in Implant and Abutment with respect to k.
while causes an increase in maximum stresses of the crown,
especially in the distal–mesial load direction. The reason is
that by increasing k, the amount of titanium in implant and
Fig. 11. Changing stress in cortical bone with respect to k.
Fig. 12. Changing stress in cancellous bone with respect to k.
abutment decreases while the value of hydroxyapatite increase
in the region of contacting between implant and cortical bone.
This causes more match between properties of implant and
cortical bone and consequently the stress concentration caused
by sudden changes in Young’s modulus will be decreased, as
it is expected. However, as the Young’s modulus of crown is
high and is more near to titanium in comparison with hy-
droxyapatite, the maximum stresses in crown increases by
increasing k. Functionalization has not any considerable effect
on the cancellous bone.
4. Conclusion
This work aims to study the effect of FGMs on stress con-
centration reduction in denture. The conclusions are summa-
rized as follows:
·The maximum stress is observed in implant. Then, it
happens in cortical bone, crown and cancellous bone, re-
spectively.
·The present study performs loading on crown in two di-
 S. K. Jalali et al. / Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 30 (11) (2016) 4919~4923
rections and it is observed that the load applied in cor-
onal–apical direction, creates less stresses in the implant
and the cortical bone.
·Using FGM for the implant has a positive effect on de-
creasing stresses in implant in both directions with simi-
lar slope. Also, the stresses is reduced in cortical bone
especially in distal–mesial load direction.
·With increasing FGM parameter, k, stresses in implant
and cortical bone decreases. However, the stress reduc-
tion slope decreases by increasing k. Implant has a direct
contact with jaw bone. The mismatch of Young’s
modulus between implant and jaw bone causes high
stress concentration. Through functionalization of mate-
rials, implant gradually converts from titanium with
higher Young’s modulus to hydroxyapatite with less one.
Accordingly, the mismatch decreases and this leads to
decreasing stresses.
·As the Young’s modulus of crown is high and is more
near to titanium in comparison with hydroxyapatite, the
maximum stresses in crown increases by increasing k.
·Functionalization has not any considerable effect on the
cancellous bone.
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S. Kamal Jalali is an Assistant Profes-
sor at Kermanshah University of Tech-
nology (KUT). He received his Ph.D. in
Mechanical Engineering from Univer-
sity of Tehran in 2015. His research
interests include computational mechan-
ics, and modern materials like FGMs,
Piezoelectric and nano-composites.
Reza Yarmohammadi is an M.Sc.
student at Shahid Chamran University,
Ahvaz, Iran. He received his B.Sc. in
Mechanical Engineering from Kerman-
shah University of Technology (KUT)
in 2015. His research interests include
composite materials, especially FGMs.
Fatemeh Maghsoudi is a Professional
Doctorate student at School of Dentistry,
Kermanshah University of Medical
Science (KUMS), Kermanshah, Iran.
Her research interests include new ma-
terials for fabrication of dental implants.