Ultrasonic guided wave propagation in a dental implant

Abstract

Ultrasound techniques can be used to characterize and stimulate dental implant osseointegration. The acoustical energy transmitted to the bone-implant interface is an important parameter that must be controlled for both applications, since it should be sufficiently low to avoid damaging the surrounding tissues, but sufficiently high for stimulation purposes to enhance bone growth. However, the interaction between an ultrasonic wave and a dental implant remains unclear. The objective of this study combining experimental, analytical and numerical approaches is to investigate the propagation of an ultrasonic wave in a dental implant by assessing the amplitude of the displacements along the implant axis. An ultrasonic transducer was excited in transient regime at 10 MHz. Laser interferometric techniques were employed to measure the amplitude of the displacements, which varied between 5 and 12 nm according to the position. The results show the propagation of a guided wave mode along the implant axis with a velocity of first arriving signal equal to 2110 m s−1 and frequency components lower than 1 MHz, which was confirmed by the analytical and numerical results. This work paves the way to improve techniques for the characterization and stimulation of the bone-implant interface.