An in vitro investigation into the wear effects of selected restorative materials on enamel.

Abrasive wear testing of five restorative materials was carried out with human enamel as the opposing surface using a wear machine specifically designed to simulate the masticatory cycle. The results showed that enamel demonstrated good abrasion resistance against amalgam and microfine composite and moderate abrasion resistance against gold. Conventional composite produced marked destruction of enamel and the greatest amount of enamel wear was produced by porcelain. The ranking order compared favourably with results from in vivo studies.