Investigation of mechanical behavior of mandibular bone with dental implants:

A dental clinical support system

Abstract

A dental clinical support system to estimate the mechanical stress in mandibular bone with implants was manufactured in a manner readily accessible for practical application, as an integration of the existing techniques established in the area of computational engineering. A mandibular bone model was constructed from a set of X-ray CT images using a threshold-based binalizing, and finite element mesh was generated with the use of a 3D-CAD software and an FE mesh generator. The proposed system was capable of generating FE meshes of the mandibular bone reflecting the individual geometry of a patient and analyzing the mechanical stress around the dental implants exerted by an occlusal force. The finite element analysis system developed herein was applied to the estimation of the optimal alignment and design of implants. This system has thus turned out to be useful in the evaluation of mechanical properties of a mandibular bone with implants.