Abstract
All-ceramic dental restorations are now regularly being used in clinical situations. Forces applied to ceramic dental restorations can result in failure due to cracking. Dental restorations may be subjected to significant loads in the mouth and small contact points between opposing teeth may result in markedly high stress when a high bite force is encountered. This study recorded maximum voluntary bite forces on the posterior teeth of 40 participants and inter-occlusal contact points were identified by digitally scanning the teeth and calculating the surface area by accompanying software. Bite forces from as low as 83.9 Newton (N) to the highest at 1642.8 N, with a mean of 430.4 N (sd = 279.4) were recorded. Inter-occlusal contact points as small as 0.065 mm
2
were measured. The resultant stress teeth may experience has been shown to potentially exceed the flexural strength of even the strongest dental ceramic available on the market for 21.8% of the teeth tested. This study aimed to describe the stresses that teeth experience, and thus predict the stresses that future restorations on those teeth may experience. This approach may prove valuable in guiding clinicians in their material selection as well as the design of all-ceramic restorations.