ABSTRACT
Aim of the Study: There is dearth of literature regarding the effects of oxidation heat treatment (OHT) as surface pretreatments on bond strength of base metal alloys and porcelain. Materials and Methods: Forty-five bar specimens of each two commercially available base metal alloys Mealloy and Wirorn-99 (were fabricated. Dimensions of each specimen were 15.0 × 2.0 × 0.5 mm (according to the ISO 6872-1984). According to the surface pretreatments the samples of the two groups were categorized into three subgroups: With OHT only, with sandblasting only (with Al 2 O 3 of 110 μm) and with OHT and sandblasting. Application of commercially available Duceram porcelain in thickness of 2.00 mm was applied over the surface of metal with the pretreatments. Samples were then placed under SEM for EDX examination to evaluate ionic changes that occurred at the metal-ceramic interface. Flexural bond strength of each sample was calculated under Universal Testing Machine. Results: The one-way ANOVA indicated no significant influence of either metal type (P=0.811) or any surface pretreatment (P=0.757) on the metal-ceramic bond strength. Conclusion: OHT resulted in the increase in amount of oxides at the metal-ceramic interface. However, neither metal type nor surface pretreatments affected bond strength.