Tribological behaviour of orthodontic archwires under dry and wet sliding conditions in-vitro. II - Wear patterns
Publié en ligne: 13 déc. 2023
Pages: 21 - 29
Reçu: 01 oct. 2005
Accepté: 01 mars 2006
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/aoj-2006-0003
© 2006 Abdenacer Berradja et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Objective
To evaluate the wear patterns of orthodontic archwires in dry and wet conditions
Methods
The patterns of wear of stainless steel and NiTi orthodontic archwires were investigated with a fretting wear tribometer fitted with an alumina ball. The tribometer was operated at 23°C in three different environments: ambient air with 50 per cent relative humidity (RH), 0.9 wt. per cent sodium chloride solution and deionised water. Differences in the wear characteristics of the archwires were investigated by scanning electron microscopy. Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis and Inductively Coupled Plasma Analysis were used to investigate the surface composition of the wires, the wear debris generated during fretting and the corrosion products in the test solutions.
Results
Both archwire materials were degraded by oxidational wear in ambient air. The NiTi wires were more resistant to wear than the stainless steel wires. In the aqueous media the stainless steel wires were degraded by abrasive wear, while the NiTi wires were degraded by adhesive wear.
Conclusion
In ambient air with 50 per cent RH, NiTi wires were more resistant to wear than stainless steel wires. Both archwire materials exhibited higher wear rates in the solutions than in air, indicating some synergism between the wear and corrosion processes. In the solutions the stainless steel archwires had a much lower corrosion-wear resistance than the NiTi archwires.