Biomechanical investigation of titanium and zirconia dental implants

This paper presents results from using a three-di-mensional finite element model to investigate the stress level in surrounding bone as a function of implant material, diameter and length. Three-dimensional model of dental im-plant and bone was created using Autodesk Inventor 2016. The 32 different implant designs used in this study cover the diameter range from 3.5 to 6.5 mm, length range from 8.0 to 17.0 mm and materials – zirconia and titanium alloy. Models were subjected to loading of 1 axial and 2 non-axial forces, all equal to 70 N. Analysis of results showed that increase in implant diameter and length generated lower stresses in both cortical and trabecular bone. Stresses in cor-tical bone were on average 19.1% lower using zirconia den-tal implants. Titanium dental implants resulted in 9.8% lower stresses in trabecular bone