A novel ultrashort dental implant design for the reduction of the bone stress/strain: A comparative numerical investigation

Abstract

Nowadays dental implant surgery is a very diffused technique with a high probability of success. Nevertheless, undesirable events such as the failure of the implant, and in many cases, the loss of the prosthesis can occur, due to the external imposed conditions. The design, the shape and geometry of the implant, the material, the kind of thread and so on, become therefore crucial variables for a longer prosthesis life cycle. This paper aims to investigate in terms of stress/strain by using Finite Element Method (FEM) a novel implant design, with thick shape, length<5 mm and diameter/length ratio>1, in comparison with a classical design implant, characterized by a narrow shape, length >5 mm and diameter/length ratio<1. Both the systems are made of titanium grade V -Ti-6Al-4V- and are coupled with dental bone which was modeled by a cortical and cancellous parts with specific mechanical properties. Results in terms of pressure field were presented for various boundary conditions imposed, and for different zones of the bone, implant and sectioned regions. The results allowed us to demonstrate the improved mechanical behavior of the biomechanical coupling implant/bone when the proposed design is adopted. Indeed, the stress/strain distribution of the implant, together with the deformations, resulted more uniform with lower peaks for all the considered boundary conditions. Analogously, the strain and the deformations followed the same trend.