Wear resistance and microhardness of human teeth

The dependence between the wear resistance and microhardness of the diflerent tissues of human teeth has been studied. During these experiments the proportionality between the wear volume of the tissues under study and their microhardness (by indentation and scratching methods) has been observed. 1 EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE The wear of extracted healthy teeth tissues was deter-mined from the friction of a superalloy rotating disc (diameter 30 mm, width 2.5 mm, sliding speed 1.06 m/s) against plate specimens. These specimens were prepared by polishing the teeth surface under study against an abrasive paper to obtain a plate surface. The friction was measured in the medium of a 0.5 % K2Cr0, water solution. The test procedure was repeated with different loads from 10 to 150 N with a 4.5 min test duration for each load. The specimens under study included enamel an