Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis of dental polymers: I. Heat-cured poly(methyl methacrylate)-based materials

Abstract

The visco-elastic characteristics of homogeneous, heterogeneous and fibre-reinforced poly(methyl methacrylate) for use as denture base resins were measured by a dynamic mechanical thermal analyser in the frequency range 0.033–90 Hz. Dynamic Young's modulus of both polyethylene woven yarn and the polyaramid plain fabric-reinforced acrylics showed considerable improvement over the conventional denture base, whereas the carbon fibre-reinforced acrylic produced results lower than expected. From the loss tangent curves of the homogeneous and heterogeneous methacrylates their transition temperatures were recorded and the reciprocals of both the α and β absorption temperatures were plotted against frequency to obtain their respective activation energies.