Dental implants are an alternative to traditional crown and bridge solutions for replacing damaged and missing teeth. These endosseous dental implants are typically titanium based, and are securely and permanently anchored in the jawbone. This removes the need to grind down the adjacent healthy teeth to support a bridge, and also provides mechanical stimulation to the underlying bone and gum structures to promote healthy tissue growth around the implant.
The ISO 14801 standard for the dynamic fatigue testing of endosseous dental implants specifies a method for determining the fatigue strength and behavior of these medical devices in vitro. The standards simulate the functional loading of the implant body under “worse case” loading conditions. The standard does not begin to address the complex multi-axial loading that occurs in the oral cavity during normal use.
Straight dental implants can be fitted into a fixed 30° angle fixture for testing to the ISO 14801 standard, ensuring that the mounting does not over constrain the implant. Further details on this system can be found here. If corrosion fatigue is apparent with the particular dental implant system, the fixture can be fitted into a fluid bath for testing of the dental implant system in normal saline at 37 °C. Pre-Angled implants can also be tested to the latest revision of ISO 14801.
Our range of electrodynamic testing systems and fatigue testing systems allow characterization to be fully conducted to the ISO standard. If bi-axial testing is required, we suggest using our ElectroPuls™ E10000 system designed for linear-torsion testing or our axial-torsion servohydraulic testing system to conduct compression and torsion testing.
We recommend that you review the standard to fully understand its requirements.
Interested in other mechanical tests for dental materials or dental implants? We have a variety of different testing equipment solutions for dentistry.