Thermal Behavior of Teeth During Restoration Procedure With Composite: Experimental Tests and Numerical Simulation

Abstract

Different thermal mechanisms influence the tooth temperature during the reconstruction practice of tooth restoration: conduction in the hard tissues and their thermal capacitance, heat generation by composite curing, irradiation of the surface from the LED lamp, convection, and conduction to the environment. All these phenomena were considered into a numerical (finite difference, FD) model to simulate the temperature trend in a tooth during reconstruction with a resin composite addition, and results compared with experiments on cylindrical sample with a cavity filled with resin. Results demonstrate that all the phenomena have been sufficiently accurately described, and the way to apply the model to real teeth is recognized.