A new thermoplastic polymer for orthodontic applications was obtained and extruded into wires with round and rectangular cross sections. We evaluated the potential of new aesthetic archwire: tensile, three point bending, friction and stress relaxation behaviour, and formability characteristics were assessed. Stresses delivered were generally slightly lower than typical beta-titanium and nickel-titanium archwires. The polymer wire has good instantaneous mechanical properties; tensile stress decayed about 2% over 2h depending on the initial stress relaxation for up to 120h. High formability allowed shape bending similar to that associated with stainless steel wires. The friction coefficients were lower than the metallic conventional archwires improving the slipping with the brackets. This new polymer could be a good candidate for aesthetic orthodontic archwires.
Keywords: Friction; Mechanical properties; Orthodontic applications; Polymer archwire.
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