3rd Year Dental Materials Science

Dr. Graham Cross

School of Physics and CRANN
SFI Nanoscience Building, Rm 1.5
http://www.tcd.ie/Physics/People/Graham.Cross/

Graham.Cross@tcd.ie

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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Topics
Oct. 26: Basic metallurgy and alloys
Nov. 2: Properties of materials, thermals
Nov. 16: Mechanics of solids and fluids
Textbooks Further Reading
Applied Dental Materials 8 th Edition 1998, John F. McCabe, Angus W. G. Walls,
Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
Restorative Dental Materials 10th Edition 1997 Editor Robert G. Craig, Mosby Year
Book, Inc, St. Louis, USA
Notes on Dental Materials 6th Edition 1992 Editor E.C. Combe, Churchill Livingstone,
Edinburgh, UK
Phillips Science of Dental Materials 10th Edition 1996, Editor Kenneth J. Arusavice,
W.B. Saunders Company Philadelphia, USA
Dental Materials, Properties and Manipulation 6th Edition 1996 Editors Robert G. Craig,
William J. OBrien, John M. Power, Mosby Year Book, Inc, St. Louis, USA
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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Mechanical properties of materials

Stress and strain

Elasticity and viscosity: Solids vs. fluids
Rheology and Plasticity
Viscoelasticity
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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Solids vs. liquids

We all understand generally what the difference between
solid and a liquid is, but in practice this difference can be
blurred..
A very general distinction is this:
Elastic behaviour
When you apply and then remove a force, fast or
slow, the object returns to its original shape!
Inelastic behaviour (flow)
When you apply and remove a force, the shape of
the object is permanently changed.
How can we understand the reaction of materials to forces
independently of the geometry of the tested object?
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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Stress
Stress is the force per unit area applied to an object:

Force
=
Area

Units = N/m2 or Pascals (Pa)

Also: 1 bar = 101.3 kPa
1 MPa = 106 Pa

Different ways of applying stress, over a surface:

Compressive

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Tensile

Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Shear

Adhesion
Adhesion may be defined simply as a force interaction
between two materials at an interface where they are in
contact.
Failure occurs at a critical stress level
Interface must support a solely tensile load:

Mechanical
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Chemical
Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Area of contact and stress

Adhesive strength depends on true contact area limited by
roughness:

Chemical Adhesion
Rough surfaces mean small contact area, so a small force makes a large stress
at local points on surface, causing failure
Polishing a surface to make it smooth increases area and reduces stress
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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Strain
Strain is a measure of the change in dimension of an
object that occurs by the application of stress.
It is defined as a relative displacement:

dl
=
l
Different kinds of
strain

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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Stress vs. strain curve

A principle way to characterize mechanical properties of solid materials.

Many properties can be

determined from it:
Elastic modulus
Tensile strength
Yield strength
Ductility
Resilience
Fracture toughness

Stress

Strain
This is an intrinsic signature of a material
Why would a force vs. displacement curve
not be?

See: Applied Dental Materials 8th Edition 1998, John F. McCabe, Angus W. G. Walls, Chapter 2.

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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Elasticity
Reversible stretching,
compression, or deforming of a
body

Stress

In the linear elastic range,

the ratio of stress to strain is
called a modulus

= E

limit

limit = 0.02 Ceramics/Metals

= 0.1 Polymer glasses
> 5 Some elastomers!
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Strain

Different modulus are defined for

different types of deformation:
Youngs modulus
Shear modulus
Bulk modulus

Dental Materials - Graham Cross

10

Elastic Modulus

Before

After

Polystyrene:

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Bulk
B=10 GPa

Youngs
E=3 GPa

Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Shear
G=1 GPa
11

Shear strain
Shear strain is a skew: it changes shape, not volume.
Very important when we consider flow.

dy

h
Shear strain rate:
h

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d dy h dy dt
=
=
dt
dt
h
d vy
=
dt
h

Dental Materials - Graham Cross

12

Simple fluid flow

Consider fluid between to
large plates of area A:
What shear stress must be
applied between the two plates
to get vy?
Shear Force
=

x
h
y

Force

Area

vy

Newtons law of fluid flow:

Shear stress is proportional to the
flow velocity gradient normal to
flow:
v
d

dt

Stress is proportional to shear strain rate!

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velocity
in y direction

NB: Fluid velocity at walls is

zero with respect to wall
(Fluid sticks to the walls)

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13

Why shear is important for flow

Force
between
atoms

Bonding energy
Repulsive
Distance of separation

Difficult!

Attractive

Compressive/tensile stress:
- Changing the distance of separation
of atoms is difficult (volume change)
Shear stress:
- Changing neighbours between atoms
is much easier (shape change)
Easy!
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A liquid changes shape, not volume, freely

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14

Solid vs. Liquid

Energy

solid

Position

(Low Temperature)

Atoms deep
in energy well

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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

vacancy

15

Solid vs. Liquid

Energy

solid

Position

(Low Temperature)

Atoms deep
in energy well

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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

vacancy

16

Solid vs. Liquid

Energy

solid

Position

(Low Temperature)

Atoms deep
in energy well

vacancy

Energy

liquid

Position

(High Temperature)

Atoms can hop

over energy
barrier!
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17

Viscosity
Viscosity describes the
way momentum is transferred
by a fluid during flow
For simple fluids it is a
constant of proportionality
between shear stress and
shear rate (Newton):

dt
d
=
dt
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Units: Pa s
(Poise)

Force

Fluid

Viscosity
Pa s

Air

0.00018

Water

0.0089

Mercury

0.015

Honey

100

Glass

1040 (?)

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18

Rheology
Study of the flow of all materials, including
solids and complex liquids such as polymer
melts, colloids, suspensions, slurries, pastes,
etc.
Consider a complex fluid, a polymer melt:
What happens when you shear this material?
Molecules both flow and they change their
shape they relax
Gives rise to both shear rate (d/dt) and time
dependent behaviour.

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Time dependent material response

Due to mechanical reasons such as relaxation time of
constitutive particles in transient (ie. non-steady) flows
Or due to chemical reasons such as setting times
Usually viscosity will be used to measure this:
Initial low viscosity for dispensing and moulding
Followed by large increase in viscosity during setting
Working time time the material can be easily manipulated
Setting time time at which viscosity goes very high
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20

Viscosity and setting time of pastes

Viscosity

Time t

Poor rheological properties

- no well defined setting time

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Time t

Ideal rheological properties

- long working time
- sudden setting time
Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Time t
Good rheological properties
- long working time
- reasonable setting time
21

Shear rate dependent flow

Fluids: Instead of a stress vs. strain curve, we plot a stress vs. strain rate curve
a) Dilatant

Newtonian linear fluid

d
dt

b) Pseudoplastic (shear thinning)

Shear
Stress

Shear
Stress

Shear rate
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d
dt
Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Shear rate

d
dt
22

Plasticity: flow of solids

Ductile behaviour of a solid
that occurs above a special
shear stress threshold called
the yield stress: yield
This occurs for many metals
and glassy polymers

Shear Stress

yield

Ceramic materials tend to

fracture, not yield

Strain

Ductility

Like a liquid, plastic flow of solids involves shape change, not volume change
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Shearing a solid: Plastic flow

Energy

solid

Position

sheared solid
Energy

Stress, not temperature,

increases the energy level
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Position

One line of atoms changes neighbours

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24

Viscoelasticity
Response of materials with both
elastic and viscous character:
time dependent
Eg. Elastomers
Two important forms:
Creep
Stress relaxation
Visualized by combining mechanical components of
Springs (elastic): instant response to stress
Dash-pots (viscous): slow response
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25

Creep
Time dependent dimensional change of materials under constant
stress.

Eg. Weight of a gold filling,

effect on elastomer padding
layer

Important for dental

amalgams:
- Melting temperature is close
to room temperature
- Teeth clenching
- Creep may be precursor to
fracture at filling edge.
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Stress

Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Strain

Time
26

Stress relaxation
When a viscoelastic material is under
constant strain a gradual reduction
in stress can occur

Stress

Eg. Dental waxes, resins, and gels

Manipulate into shape, then stress
drops over time
This can, in turn, lead to dimensional
changes on other surrounding loaded
structures.
For more examples, see:
Applied Dental Materials 8th Edition 1998, John
F. McCabe, Angus W. G. Walls, Blackwell, Oxford,
UK.

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Dental Materials - Graham Cross

Time t
27