A Mechanical Study on Two Different Shapes of Linkow-Blade Implants through the Experimental Photoelastic Stress Analysis and the Finite Element Stress Analysis

Abstract

Linkow-blade implants are the most popular ones among the endosseous dental implants because of their efficiency and safety. However, we occasionaly experienced bone resorption during the long term observation. Stresses under masticating forces and other forces conduced to the bone resorption and the sinking of the implant body.
To elucidate this problem, we tried to examine how the stress distribution in the bone tissue changed according with its design of implant under the compressive force.
This time, we studied about two shapes of Linkow-blade implants, a wide use of endosseous implants designed by Dr. Linkow;one was so called“opened-type”whose feet were opened, and the other was so called“closed-type”whose feet were closed.
To find out the differences in the stress distribution of two cases, we used two methods of the photoelasticity test and the finite element method.
The result shows that the closed-type implant doesn't have so irregular stress distribution as opened-type.