Objectives: To measure the effect of placement of glass fibre mesh on the flexural strength and load bearing capacity of repaired polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) denture base resin.
Materials and methods: A total of 150 heat-polymerised acrylic resin specimens were fabricated with dimensions of 5 × 30 × 50 mm for flexural strength testing. Specimens were divided into 5 groups according to repair width and placement of the fibre mesh. Three groups (n = 90) had a repair width of 20 mm (including the control group), and two groups (n = 60) had a narrower repair width of 16 mm. Fibre mesh was either embedded at the neutral (bottom of the repair area) or tension (top of the repair area) zone of the specimen when subjected to flexural strength testing. Half of the specimens from each group were subjected to artificial ageing by thermocycling (5 °C and 55 °C, 30s dwell time) for 10,000 cycles to stimulate 12 months in vivo. All the specimens were stored in distilled water at 37 °C for 24 h prior to testing. The flexural strength of the specimen was obtained by three-point bend testing, and data were statistically analysed using ANOVA and post-hoc analysis (SPSS; significance level p < 0.05). Probability of failure was calculated using Weibull analysis. Scanning electron microscopy analysis was used to identify the mode of failure.
Results: Specimens repaired with the 20 mm fibre mesh placed in the tension zone showed the highest mean flexural strength (101.33 ± 12.66 MPa) with statistical significance (p = 0.05) to the other groups except for the specimens repaired with the 16 mm fibre mesh placed in the tension zone (p = 0.072). The highest Weibull modulus was found in the thermal cycling group of the specimens with 20 mm repair width repaired with the fibre mesh embedded at the neutral zone (10.01). The lowest Weibull modulus was found in the non-thermal cycling group of the control group (3.15).
Conclusion: Placing fibre mesh in the tension zone of a PMMA specimen significantly improved the flexural strength of the repair. Placing the fibre mesh in the neutral zone or the fibre mesh width was short of the lower support rollers resulted in no significant increase in flexural strength compared to the non-reinforced control group. Ageing via thermal cycling resulted in a decrease in flexural strength across all sample groups. This study highlights the importance of recognising the valid repair region and to have the mesh embedded in certain dimensions, otherwise it will have no significant contribution towards the repair and increase of flexural strength of the denture.
Keywords: Denture; Denture repair; Flexural strength; Polymethyl methacrylate.
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