Chapter 13 - On 3D printing assisted fabrication of dental crowns for veterinary patients

Abstract

The dental crowns (DCs) fabrication for veterinary patients (VP) has been in practice commercially through the traditional investment casting (IC) approach. But hitherto little has been reported on 3D printing assisted fabrication of DC for such VP. This paper highlights the use of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene based sacrificial master pattern assisted IC for preparation of strategic teeth of German Shepherd male dog (3 years age). The master pattern was prepared on fused deposition modeling (FDM) set up followed by IC with Ni-Cr alloy at fixed settings. The results of this study suggest that the proposed route for the preparation of DC can be gainfully employed for VP. Further, the final cast prepared with traditional IC and FDM-assisted IC were compared from dimensional accuracy, surface finish, surface hardness, and microstructure viewpoint.