• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.97-103
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• 2016

When chewing forces are repetitively applied to a dental implant, gaps are often generated at the interface surfaces between the abutment and the fixture, which results in some deterioration, such as loosening of the fastening screw, dental retraction, and fixture fractures. To cope with such problems, a sealing-type abutment having a number of grooves along the conical-surface circumference was previously developed, and it showed better sealing performance than conventional ones. To enhance the sealing performance, a new model in which a gold ring is inserted into the top groove of the sealing-type abutment is developed in this study. In addition, a manufacturing process is developed, and performance evaluations, such as fatigue and sealing tests, are carried out. The evaluation results show that the gold-ring-inserted sealing abutment yields better performance than conventional ones.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.33 no.9
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• pp.769-775
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• 2016

Currently, dental implants are widely used as artificial teeth due to their good chewing performance and long life cycle. Generally, a dental implant consists of an abutment as the upper part and a fixture as the lower part. When chewing forces are repeatedly applied to a dental implant, a gap is often generated at the interfacial surface between the abutment and the fixture, and it results in some deterioration such as loosening of the fastening screw, dental retraction and fixture fracture. To enhance the sealing performance for coping with such problems, this study proposes a new sealing-type abutment having a number of grooves along the conical surface circumference, and it carries out finite element analysis in consideration of the external chewing force and pretension between the abutment and the fixture. The result shows that the proposed sealing-type abutment shows an enhanced sealing performance in terms of the contact pressure in comparison with a conventional abutment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.24-30
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• 2018

Dental implants are currently widely used as artificial teeth due to their good chewing performance and long life cycle. A dental implant consists of an abutment as the upper part and a fixture as the lower part. When chewing forces are repeatedly applied to a dental implant, gap at the interface surface between the abutment and the fixture is often occurred, and results in some deteriorations such as loosening of fastening screw, dental retraction and fixture fracture. To cope with such problems, a sealing-type abutment having a number of grooves along the conical-surface circumference was previously developed, and shows better sealing performance than the conventional one. This study carries out optimization of the groove shape by genetic algorithm(GA) as well as structural analysis in consideration of external chewing force and pretension between the abutment and the fixture. The overall optimization system consists of two subsystems; the one is the genetic algorithm with MATLAB, and the other is the structural analysis with ANSYS. Two subsystems transmit and receive the relevant data with each other throughout the optimization processes. The optimization result is then compared with that of the conventional one with respect to the contact pressure and the maximum stress. The result shows that the optimized model gives better sealing performance than the conventional sealing abutment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.1095-1096
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• 2013

• The Journal of Korean Academy of Prosthodontics
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.767-780
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• 1997

One of the most common problems of implant prosthesis is the screw loosening of abutment screws. This brings on discomfort in mastication, inflammation in the peri-implant tissue due to poor oral hygiene and fracture of prosthesis or loss of osseointegration. To prevent screw loosening, appropriate implantation to direct the occlusal force to the long axis of the implant, accurate design of the superstructure, decrease of the occlusal table, and adequate torque on the abutment screw are necessary. In this study the screw loosening torque was evaluated in implants with dimples or flutes in the internal surface of abutment screw holes. The abutments were fastened with slot type and hexagonal type abutment screws and were sealed with vinyl poly siloxane impression and bite registration material respectively. The screw loosening torque was evaluated after 1,800 and 12,600 times loading under a loading machine. The results were as follows. 1. The flute form group showed significantly higher loosening torque compared to the dimple form group and the group with no inner surface treatment (p<0.05). 2. There was no statistical difference in loosening torque according to the sealing materials. 3. The loosening torque according to the types of abutment screw showed no significant difference. 4. The loosening torque was significantly higher after 1800 times loading compared to 12600 times loading(p<0.05). From the above results. it is thought that formation of a flute in the internal surface of the screw hole decreases the chance of screw loosening, but the sealing materials and types of abutment screw did not show significant difference in prevention of screw loosening.

• The Journal of Advanced Prosthodontics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.105-111
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• 2019

PURPOSE. Limited data is available regarding the differences for possible microleakage problems and fitting accuracy of zirconia versus titanium abutments with various connection designs. The purpose of this in vitro study was to investigate the effect of connection design and abutment material on the sealing capability and fitting accuracy of abutments. MATERIALS AND METHODS. A total of 42 abutments with different connection designs [internal conical (IC), internal tri-channel (IT), and external hexagonal (EH)] and abutment materials [titanium (Ti) and zirconia (Zr)] were evaluated. The inner parts of implants were inoculated with $0.7{\mu}L$ of polymicrobial culture (P. gingivalis, T. forsythia, T. denticola and F. nucleatum) and connected with their respective abutments under sterile conditions. The penetration of bacteria into the surrounding media was assessed by the visual evaluation of turbidity at each time point and the number of colony forming units (CFUs) was counted. The marginal gap at the implant- abutment interface (IAI) was measured by scanning electron microscope. The data sets were statistically analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis followed by Mann-Whitney U tests with the Bonferroni-Holm correction (${\alpha}=.05$). RESULTS. Statistically significant difference was found among the groups based on the results of leaked colonies (P<.05). The EH-Ti group characterized by an external hexagonal connection were less resistant to bacterial leakage than the groups EH-Zr, IT-Zr, IT-Ti, IC-Zr, and IC-Ti (P<.05). The marginal misfit (in ${\mu}m$) of the groups were in the range of 2.7-4.0 (IC-Zr), 1.8-5.3 (IC-Ti), 6.5-17.1 (IT-Zr), 5.4-12.0 (IT-Ti), 16.8-22.7 (EH-Zr), and 10.3-15.4 (EH-Ti). CONCLUSION. The sealing capability and marginal fit of abutments were affected by the type of abutment material and connection design.