Less grams per square meter of woven reinforced fiber improves the flexural properties and color stability of glass fiber-reinforced plastics used for dental CAD-CAM

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of the grams per square meter (GSM) of glass fiber woven cloth used as reinforcement on the flexural properties and color stability of glass fiber-reinforced plastics (GFRPs) applied in computer-aided design-computer-aided manufacturing (CAD-CAM) restorations. Two types of GFRPs were fabricated using glass fiber woven cloth with different GSM values (215 and 47 g/m²), which were impregnated with thermoplastic acrylic resin. The control group consisted of acrylic resin without reinforcement, as well as two types of commercially available CAD-CAM GFRPs with a thermosetting epoxy resin matrix. As a result, GFRPs impregnated with thermoplastic acrylic resin showed higher flexural properties than commercially available GFRPs, and a lower GSM provided improved flexural properties and color stability compared with specimens using a higher GSM.