Development of a microtorquemeter for the evaluation of the implant abutment interface behavior

Abstract

This paper presents the initial developments of a prototype device intended to perform measurements of the fastening torque in the range bellow 1 N.m – hereby denominated microtorque. The device is intended to yield data for analysis of in vitro torquing and detorquing experiments, for fixation and removing of abutments in dental implants and implants in artificial bones. The analysis of the data acquired allowed the authors to observe characteristic fingerprints or signal signatures associated to the type of abutment or implant under experimentation as well as of the mechanical prototype characteristics. In this paper, two different systems of abutment and implant were analyzed. The correlation between the phenomena associated to the signal fingerprints indicate that the developed measurement protocol may be extended to other implant / abutment systems. The authors suggest that the insertion and removal torque curves evaluated in this study would facilitated the correlation between the abutments stability in actual patients and the dynamical behavior under masticatory function.