Fatigue of biomaterials: Hard tissues

Abstract

The fatigue and fracture behavior of hard tissues are topics of considerable interest today. This special group of organic materials comprises the highly mineralized and load-bearing tissues of the human body, and includes bone, cementum, dentin and enamel. An understanding of their fatigue behavior and the influence of loading conditions and physiological factors (e.g. aging and disease) on the mechanisms of degradation are essential for achieving lifelong health. But there is much more to this topic than the immediate medical issues. There are many challenges to characterizing the fatigue behavior of hard tissues, much of which is attributed to size constraints and the complexity of their microstructure. The relative importance of the constituents on the type and distribution of defects, rate of coalescence, and their contributions to the initiation and growth of cracks, are formidable topics that have not reached maturity. Hard tissues also provide a medium for learning and a source of inspiration in the design of new microstructures for engineering materials. This article briefly reviews fatigue of hard tissues with shared emphasis on current understanding, the challenges and the unanswered questions.

Ceramics and ceramic coatings in orthopaedics

“…Due to this architecture, its mechanical properties are generally reported as a function of density [329]. For cortical bone, alignment of the osteons with the bone's long axis bestows unique and beneficial anisotropy.…”

On the Mechanics of Fatigue and Fracture in Teeth

“…Both the stress-life behavior and fatigue crack growth resistance of enamel and dentin have been studied. Detailed reviews of the fatigue behavior of hard tissues of the human body have been reported [108,128]. Thus, this portion of the review is focused on new results and only highlights previous findings.…”

Degradation in the Fatigue Resistance of Dentin by Bur and Abrasive Air-jet Preparations

“…Of note, previous studies were limited to quasi-static loading of the tissue to failure. Dentin is susceptible to degradation by fatigue (Arola et al, 2010), and small flaws may propagate by fatigue crack growth (Arola et al, 1999;Nalla et al, 2003). No study has examined whether the methods of cavity preparation are important to the fatigue behavior of coronal dentin.…”