Comparison between Two Materials for the Fabrication of Modified Design for Posterior Inlay.retained Fixed Dental Prosthesis: A Finite Element Study

Aims: This study was done to test materials to restore missing mandibular first molar with a new prosthetic design. Materials and Methods: Two three-dimensional finite element models were prepared, especially to simulate missing mandibular first molar. Models geometry was created on commercial engineering computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing package and then transferred to ANSYS for the stress analysis. Posterior inlay-retained fixed dental prosthesis (FDP) was modeled as one piece and as multiple pieces containing metallic substructure, coating layer, and wings resin coating. The dental prosthesis materials tested in this study are full zirconia as one piece or first case study, in addition to chromium cobalt as a substructure, porcelain coating, and adhesive resin as wings coating to be the second case study. Results: Compressive load of 400N was applied on the buccal cusp, and resultant stresses were compared between the two models. Von Misses stress distributions in the two models showed safe values. The zirconia prosthesis showed less stresses. Conclusions: The two case studies showed two equivalent alternatives. Both cases are suitable for FDP manufacturing. Other factors such as lifetime and color matching may govern the dentist selection of material to be used.