Study of Bond Strength of Dental Porcelain Fused to Metal

¹ School of Dentistry, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The study suggested a method of evaluating the energy necessary to initiate and propagate fracture in ceramic coatings on a metal rod in tension. The differences in chart area data, the maximum ceramic stress data, were methods of evaluating crack initiation and propagation and thus the strength of the ceramic-to-metal bond. Additional work is in progress to establish effect of thickness of the ceramic coating and to study the effect of inert atmospheres at various levels of pressure.

The fact that the oxygen-fired samples gave the highest values and the vacuum-fired samples the lowest values is indicative that vacuum firing may not be as good a way to produce this type of dental prosthesis as has been assumed.