Purpose: The objective of this in vitro investigation was to compare the vertical wear produced by cone-shaped styli of three ceramic restorative materials and a Type III gold alloy opposing flattened human enamel. Vertical wear was measured as enamel height loss, material stylus height loss, and total vertical height loss (the sum of the enamel height loss and the restorative material height loss).
Materials and methods: Ten cone-shaped styli were fabricated from each of four restorative materials, which included two machined ceramics, a pressed ceramic, and a Type III gold alloy. To maintain the standardized shape, styli were not polished or glazed. Specimens were subjected to wear in the presence of water for 100,000 cycles at 1.2 Hz under a load of 75 N using a wear simulation device. Enamel wear was evaluated by profilometry, and stylus wear was evaluated by computer imaging. Vertical wear was reported as enamel height loss, material stylus height loss, and total vertical height loss (the sum of the enamel height loss and material height loss). Data were compared using one-way analysis of variance and Scheffe's analysis (alpha = 0.05).
Results: Significant differences existed among materials based on material height loss (p = .0001), enamel height loss (p = .0001), and total vertical height loss (p = .0118). No significant difference among the three ceramics was found in mean total height loss, which ranged from 0.280 to 0.305 mm. However, the Type III gold exhibited less mean total wear (0.231 +/- 0.082) than the pressed and one machineable ceramic. This machined ceramic exhibited the most material height loss (0.249 +/- 0.044 mm). With the other ceramics, mean enamel wear was significantly more (0.211 and 0.216 mm, respectively).
Conclusions: During wear simulation, pressed or machineable ceramics opposing flattened enamel exhibited a similar degree of total vertical height loss. One machined ceramic material wore significantly more than the other materials. The other machineable ceramic and the pressed ceramic wore the opposing enamel significantly more.