Understanding and enhancing the mechanical performance of bioinspired zirconia-based dental materials

口腔疾病，如蛀牙，是影响世界上超过40%的人口和英国超过30%的成年人的主要医疗保健挑战之一。这种疾病可能导致牙齿功能丧失，这可能损害饮食并对一般健康产生不良后果。它还可能导致牙齿美观的损失，这对患者的社会活动产生不利影响。功能和美观都可以通过牙冠（例如瓷贴面氧化锆框架）来恢复，这也有助于防止患者经历疼痛，敏感和感染。受英国老龄化人口的推动，他们需要复杂的牙科护理来恢复和维护他们的牙齿，以及英格兰超过37%的成年人有一个或多个牙冠，对患者特定的牙齿修复产品（例如牙冠）的需求不断增长，寿命增加。尽管在机械性能方面不断改进，但传统的瓷贴面氧化锆框架仍然遭受高失效率（在3至5年期间约6-15%）。这些牙冠的主要失效模式是瓷贴面的近界面碎裂，这是由于咀嚼期间施加到牙冠的咀嚼或研磨表面的载荷（称为咬合载荷）。牙冠的失效会给患者造成广泛的不适，并且对患者和临床医生都具有高成本影响。为了缓解该问题，因此非常需要开发具有显著改善的抗开裂性的新型无瓷氧化锆基牙科修复材料。这些复合材料的灵感可能来自天然牙齿，它们具有复杂的结构，赋予它们显着的机械性能，特别是抗断裂性-特别是在牙釉质中。牙釉质已被证明具有分级的微观结构和与弹性支撑牙本质的非常强的界面结合。 在这个项目中，我们建议理解和改善新型氧化锆基复合材料的机械性能与仿生功能梯度和纹理微观结构。我们的目标是模仿天然牙釉质的结构和显着的机械性能。机械性能的改善将基于对生物启发的微观结构特征在确定机械性能中的作用的基本理解，以及如何通过微观结构优化来增强性能。为了实现这一目标，我们将开发和实施先进的微尺度机械和结构表征技术和微机械建模。我们将与学术和工业合作者密切合作，并接受临床输入。该项目的成果将指导制造和加工，以仿生材料设计和优化下一代牙科产品的开发周期。患有牙科疾病的患者将从这项工作中受益，其健康状况、个人幸福和生活质量将得到深远的改善。

Oral disease such as tooth decay is one of the major healthcare challenges that affects over 40% of the world's population and over 30% of dentate adults in England. Such disease can lead to a loss of function in teeth that can impair diet and have undesirable consequences for general health. It can also lead to a loss of aesthetics in teeth, which adversely influences social activity of the patients. Both function and aesthetics can be restored with dental crowns (e.g. porcelain-veneered zirconia frameworks), which can also help prevent patients from experiencing pain, sensitivity and infection. Driven by the ageing population in the UK who need complex dental care to restore and maintain their teeth throughout their lives, as well as the fact that over 37% of dentate adults in England have one or more crowns, there has been a growing demand for patient specific dental restorative products (e.g. dental crowns) with increased longevity. Despite a continuous improvement in the mechanical performance, the conventional porcelain-veneered zirconia frameworks still suffer from a high failure rate (approximately 6-15% over a 3- to 5- year period). The primary failure mode of these dental crowns is near-interface chipping of the porcelain veneer, due to the loads that are applied to the chewing or grinding surface of the crown during mastication (referred to as occlusal loads). Failure of dental crowns can cause extensive discomfort to patients and have high cost implications for both patients and clinicians. To alleviate the problem, it is therefore highly desirable to develop novel porcelain-free zirconia-based dental restorative materials with significantly improved resistance to cracking. Inspiration for these composites can come from natural teeth, which have an intricate architecture giving them remarkable mechanical properties, especially the resistance to fracture - particularly in tooth enamel. Tooth enamel has been shown to have graded microstructure and extraordinarily strong interfacial bonding to the resilient supporting dentine. In this project, we propose to understand and improve the mechanical performance of novel zirconia-based composites with bioinspired functionally graded and textured microstructures. Our aim is to mimic the structure and remarkable mechanical properties of natural tooth enamel. The improvement of the mechanical performance will be based on a fundamental understanding of the role of bioinspired microstructural features in determining the mechanical properties, and how the properties can be enhanced by microstructural optimisation. To achieve this, we will develop and implement advanced micro-scale mechanical and structural characterisation techniques and micromechanical modelling. We will be working in close collaboration with academic and industrial collaborators and receive clinical input. The outcomes of this project will direct the manufacturing and processing towards biomimetic materials design and optimisation for the development cycle of the next generation dental products. Patients suffering from dental disease will benefit from this work through far-reaching improvements in the state of health, personal happiness and quality of life.