Samuele Avolese

Dottorando in Bioingegneria E Scienze Medico-chirurgiche , 39o ciclo (2023-2026)

Profilo

Dottorato di ricerca

Argomento di ricerca

The Digital Design of 3D Printed Orthodontic Aligners: Analysis of Print Accuracy, Form Stability, and Forces Exerted by the 3D Printed Aligner

Tutori

  • Nicola Scotti
  • Andrea Piero Deregibus

Presentazione della ricerca

Poster

Interessi di ricerca

Dental and Craniofacial Surgery

Biografia

Introduction: Fabrication of orthodontic aligners directly via 3-dimensional (3D) printing presents the potential to increase the efficiency of aligner production relative to traditional workflows; however, several aspects of the 3D-printing process might affect the dimensional fidelity of the fabricated appliances. This study is aimed to investigate the form deformation that can occur during the 3D printed aligner fabrication made with the TC-85 DAC resin (Graphy Inc).
Materials and Methods: for the study, 10 patients with full permanent dentition with aligned arches were selected and a set of aligners were digitally designed using the uDesign Direct Aligner software (Graphy Inc). These digital aligners were 3D printed using TC-85 DAC resin (Graphy Inc) in 2 copies: one copy was produced following the manufacturer's instructions, which involves the removal of the print supports before the final curing of the aligner; the other copy was produced without removing the print media and curing the aligner with it. The aligners divided into these two groups were digitized and compared to the original design of the digitally designed aligner with Geomagic Control X software (3D Systems, Rock Hill, SC) using RMS data to identify variations between 3D produced aligners and their respective digital design. The data were analysed using SPSS software (IBM Corporation, 1 New Orchard Road, Armonk, New York, USA). (P <0.05).
Results: the comparison between aligners produced by removing the supports before final curing and those produced without removing the supports before final curing was statistically significant with a p-value <0.0001, showing how there is a difference between the two groups depending on the production process adopted.
Conclusions: the results carried out on the shape stability of 3D printed aligners based on the type of processing have allowed us to observe that the manual removal of the print supports before final curing affects the dimensional accuracy of aligners made by direct 3D printing.
Therefore, it is possible to say that at present it is not recommended to use a workflow that involves manually removing print media prior to final curing, as statistically significant differences in shape have been found between aligners cured with all print media and those with supports removed prior to final curing.