Evaluation of surface roughness and fracture resistance of maxillary conventional & digital complete dentures: An Invitro study

Aim: to evaluate the surface roughness and fracture resistance of complete dentures made using heat-cured polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) resin manufactured by conventional technique & digital complete dentures manufactured by additive manufacturing technique. Materials and Methods : A total of 24 complete dentures were made (n=24), 12 dentures were made using heat-cured polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) resin manufactured by the conventional methods. 12 dentures were designed by Exocad software program & constructed using additive manufacturing technique. Surface roughness was evaluated using optical profilometry. Fracture resistance was evaluated using universal testing machine. Data were analysed using unpaired t-test where α = 0.05. Results: There was no statistically significant difference found between the two groups when comparing the surface roughness values (P=0.5137). Conventional PMMA dentures showed mean (2.52± 0.14 µm), while 3D-printed dentures showed mean (2.59± 0.38 µm). However, regarding the fracture resistance, there was statistically significant difference found between the two groups (P<0.5), the conventional PMMA dentures showed higher mean (572.49± 13.07 N), while the digital dentures showed lesser mean with (202.51 ± 10.35 N). Conclusion : Conventional PMMA dentures and 3D-printed dentures had similar surface roughness. However conventional PMMA dentures had better fracture resistance when compared to 3D-printed dentures.