Dentin bonding system. Part I: Literature review.

Currently, clinicians face choices of restoration including amalgams (mercury-based, gallium-based alloys, or mercury-free silver-based substitutes), composite resins, ceramics, and gold alloy. In order to choose an appropriate restorative material, many parameters are involved; they include preparation time requirements, finishing and polishing, marginal integrity, anatomy and contours, chipping and fracture, sensitivity, microleakage, wear resistance, and corrosion resistance. It is generally believed that amalgams are still evaluated as the best of all restorative materials as far as the aforementioned parameters are concerned. It is claimed that the amalgams exhibit in the range of 10 to 25 service years, while the composite resin exhibits ranging between 7 and 11 service years. When a composite resin requires a mass large enough for indirect fabrication, a bonding system is demanded with which this restoration should form an instantaneous, impervious, and stable bond to the tooth structure. Roughly a quarter century has passed since the research and development of a promising dentin bonding system was initiated. We are now in the fifth generation of the dentin bonding system, during the research and development of which various types of bonding agents as well as bonding models have been introduced. In this article, the history of development of the bonding agents and the understanding of the bonding mechanism will be reviewed.

Development of photo-sensing bulge ductility tester.

The ductility of thin films is normally evaluated by conducting the bulge testing. However, the accuracy of the conventional type of mechanical bulge ductility testing unit is poor in determining the actual elongation. In this development, a photo-sensitive device is provided in the detecting portion to accurately measure the elongation. The sensitivity depends on the type of the materials tested. A Pyrex glass ball is utilized as a punching ball to provide equally distributed light. Pushing of the Pyrex glass is activated by a hydraulic media to control the punching velocity. Accuracy and reproducibility were primarily checked with copper thin foil deposited on polyimide substrates. Two types of dental articulating papers (paper-based and plastic-based) were tested. It was suggested that an appropriate selection of articulating paper to mark the occlusal interferences is essential for precise determination of occlusal harmony.