An investigation of temperature and stress distribution on a restored maxillary second premolar tooth using a three-dimensional finite element method.

This paper presents the stress analysis of the maxillary second premolar tooth under thermal loading as a result of hot/cold liquid in the mouth using the three-dimensional (3D) finite element method (FEM). The tooth was considered to be in a restored state with composite resin and amalgam on glass-ionomer as the base material. In the first step of the study, the temperature changes as a result of hot/cold liquid in the mouth were calculated. The thermal stress distributions owing to the temperature changes were then obtained. All calculation programs were prepared by the authors using FORTRAN 77. The tooth was assumed to be isotropic, homogeneous, elastic and unsymmetric. The distribution of temperature and stress were plotted for some critical points.