The influence of the bone-implant interface stiffness on stress profiles surrounding Al2O3 and carbon dental implants

Dental implants have been used and studied for the replacement of missing teeth for many years. Finite element stress analysis (FESA) has previously been used in their evaluation to study the effect of various design parameters on induced stresses. A twodimensional FESA was used to evaluate the effect that the implant-bone interface elastic modulus has on the stress distribution around LTI carbon and aluminum oxide dental implants. The results of this investigation indicate that a soft tissue interface between implants and bone negates the effect of implant elastic modulus and results in stress profiles that were almost identical for the LTI carbon and aluminum oxide implants. This research was supported by NIH Grants DE 04653, DE 0041, and AM 0022, and VA Grant V629P-713.