Dental implant stability analysis by using resonance frequency method

The use of dental implants in the rehabilitation of partially and completely edentulous patients has been significantly increased in recent years. Although high survival rates of implants supporting prosthesis have been reported, failure still happens due to bone loss as results of primary and secondary implant stability. Primary stability of an implant mostly comes from mechanical interaction with cortical bone while secondary stability happens through bone regeneration and remodelling at the implant/bone interface. Defining the implant stability remains a challenge in dentistry and several researches have been made in this field. To detect implant stability, various diagnosis analyses have been employed. Among them, resonance frequency analysis (RFA) is an objective method of monitoring implant/tissue integration. In this thesis, experimental and numerical studies are carried out to find the effect of some parameters affecting the stability of dental implant by using RFA. Modal analysis technique is employed to investigate the effect of coupled mode shapes in dental implant. Moreover, the primary stability of dental implant that indicates the process of bone-implant integration is investigated. Resonance frequency of jaw-implant structure is carried out using finite element modelling. Different implant-bone interface conditions are studied for this investigation. The effects of endosseous implant angulation on the resonance frequency of implant are studied. MIMICS, a three dimensional (3D) modelling software was used to construct a 3D model of a pig mandible from computed tomography (CT) images. The resonance frequency of the implant was analyzed using finite element (FE) modal analysis in a simulated environment. The MIMICS is also used to investigate effect of soft tissue surrounding the implant on the RF of implant. In addition, three different pig mandibles were employed to assess the effect of some parameters affecting resonance frequency of implant. Finally, experimental studies are carried out to investigate the effect of soft tissue on RF of implant. A novel device is also designed for stability analysis of dental implants.