Evaluation and Comparison of Mechanical Properties of Heat Polymerized Acrylic Resin After Reinforcement of Different Fibers in Different Patterns: An In Vitro Study

Cureus. 2023 May 27;15(5):e39564. doi: 10.7759/cureus.39564. eCollection 2023 May.

Abstract

Introduction: Most denture fractures occur within the mouth due to resin flexural fatigue. For example, the deep labial notch at the high labial frenum causes denture breakage, as can deep scratches and generated processing stresses. The rising cost of annual prosthetic repairs is evidence that the problem of total denture fracture has not been solved. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the relative improvement in flexural strength between heat-cured polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) resin reinforced with glass fibers (GF) and basalt fibers (BF) of varied orientations.

Material and methods: A total of 150 heat-cured acrylic resin specimens of 65x10x3 mm dimension were prepared, 30 of which were left unreinforced (Group A), 30 of which were reinforced with GF in transverse pattern (Group B), 30 of which were reinforced with GF in meshwork pattern (Group C), 30 of which were reinforced with BF in transverse pattern (Group D), and 30 of which were reinforced with BF in meshwork pattern (Group E). All of the samples were put through flexural strength testing on the universal testing machine. One-way ANOVA and the Tukey-Kramer various correlation test (= 0.05) were used in SPSS for Windows to look at the facts.

Results: The mean flexural strength for Group A was 46.26±2.26 MPa, 64.98±1.53 MPa for Group B, 76.45±2.67 MPa for Group C, 54.22±2.24 MPa for Group D, and 59.02±2.38 MPa for Group E. Flexural strength was impacted by both the kind of BF and GF reinforcement (F = 768.316, P = 0.001).

Conclusion: Within the limitation of the current research, BF reinforcement outperforms GF reinforcement and unreinforced heat-cured acrylic resin in terms of flexural strength.

Keywords: basalt fibers; bidirectional reinforcement; flexural strength; glass fibers; polymethyl meth-acrylate; unidirectional reinforcement.