A fogászati kerámiaanyagok fejlődésének történeti áttekintése

Initially, ceramics - mostly burnt clay - were used to manufacture container pottery. The first porcelain objects reached Europe out of China in the Medieval Ages. The technique of their manufacturing was a mystery for many hundred years, yet Germans succeeded first to produce fine European porcelain at the beginning of the 18th century. Its elegance and hardness woke the dentists’ interest too thus Frenchmen created the first porcelain dentures in the second half of the 18th century. Since then, there has been an increasing demand for esthetic fixed implant dentures instead of removable ones. The development of ceramic materials resulted in better mechanical and optical properties, thus the first fixed porcelain inlays and jacket crowns were introduced already in 1889. The addition of leucite filler crystals to porcelain in the 20th century increased the thermal expansion of the ceramic. It could be fired on common dental casting alloys, so the first porcelain-fused-to-metal (PFM) crown was created in 1962. Several new techniques were developed from the middle of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s to deal with initial shrinkage and achieve better properties. Beyond casting, pressing, and CAD/CAM technology, additive manufacturing opened new perspectives in dentistry several years ago in processing dental ceramics.

Considerations on determining the castability of dental casting alloys

Castability is, along with biocompatibility, one of the most important characteristics of metallic materials used for dental prosthetic applications. In addition, the characteristics and performance of the employed casting machine are also decisive for the end result of the casting, especially when dealing with titanium or a titanium alloy. Starting from a critical analysis of the existing methods for determining the castability of dental alloys, the current paper presents a new method (and associated pattern) for determining the castability. Also, given the castability’s dependence on the type of casting machine, the paper includes an analysis of suitable casting machines and suggests some possible improvements.