Biomechanical aspects in dental replacements

This chapter deals with biomechanical aspects in dental replacements. The state of the art is critically reviewed taking into account the body of the literature results. The initial section is devoted to the mechanical properties of bone and to a description of the jaw geometry and of its loading and constraining. The following section presents a classifi cation of the various tooth replacement confi gurations and of the various materials adopted, where single and multiple replacements are considered. A specifi c section is devoted to the solid modelling of the jaw as input to numerical analyses, where the aid offered by reverse engineering and tomography is underlined. The fi nite element method as well as alternative numerical and experimental approaches are reviewed in a dedicated section. The stress analysis forecasts and measurements are biomechanically interpreted in the light of the current literature results. The chapter ends with a section devoted to biological aspects.