Stress analysis of porous titanium dental implants by using the finite element method

Abstract

The titanium and its alloys are the biomaterial most used to substitute the bone tissue in dental implants. Nevertheless, one of its main drawbacks is the Young’s modulus mismatch with respect to that one of the bone, which produces the stress shielding phenomenon, promoting the bone resorption around the implant. One alternative to solve that problem has been the fabrication of titanium porous implants with an appropriated balance between mechanical properties, i.e. stiffness and mechanical strength. In this work, a Finite Element Analysis of the stress of a porous titanium implant is presented. A model of dense dental titanium implant was developed consisting in a ceramic crown cemented on titanium implant abutment. The results were compared with the literature to approve their accuracy, and the same boundary conditions were applied to a porous implant with 40%, 50%, 60% and 70% of porosity. The stress distributions on both the crown-implant and implant-bone interface were investigated under static loading condition. The Young modulus was obtained for the porous implants. The better behavior face to this application was obtained with 40% porous titanium.