Descriptive Fractography on All-Ceramic Dental Crown Failures

Published

October 12, 2021

Author(s)

Susanne Scherrer, Janet Quinn, George D. Quinn, HW A. Wiskott

Abstract

Descriptive fractography has been applied to three dental ceramic crown failures for understanding the fracture process and assessing possible design inadequacies. In two cases, the original broken parts could be recovered for stereo and SEM analysis. In the third case, the replica method was used for reproduction of the still in-situ remaining fractured ceramic crown part. The dental replica technique consists in the injection of a high precision silicon impression material onto the fractured surface and pouring of a positive epoxy model which is then gold-coated for SEM evaluation.The recovered ceramic pieces as well as the replica model were inspected for fractographic features such as hackle, wake hackle, twist hackle, compression curl and arrest lines for determination of the direction of crack propagation and location of the origin.A general map of the fracture events could be reconstructed for all three cases based on recognition of wake hackle and compression curl. The replica technique proved to be easy to use and allowed an excellent reproduction of the fractured surface. Case specific reasons for failure are discussed.

Proceedings Title

Fractography of Glasses and Ceramics | 5th | Ceramic Transactions | The American Ceramic Society

Conference Dates

July 9-12, 2006

Conference Location

Undefined

Conference Title

Fractography of Glasses and Ceramics Proceedings

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

cracks, crown failures, failure analysis, fractography, replica

Citation

Scherrer, S. , Quinn, J. , Quinn, G. and Wiskott, H. (2021), Descriptive Fractography on All-Ceramic Dental Crown Failures, Fractography of Glasses and Ceramics | 5th | Ceramic Transactions | The American Ceramic Society, Undefined (Accessed October 13, 2025)