A Comparative Study of Periodontal Ligament as Poroelastic and Hyper-viscoelastic Models Using Three-Dimensional Finite Element Analysis

Periodontal ligament (PDL) is one of the supporting tissues in the mouth which surrounds the tooth and plays an important role in transferring forces from the teeth to the alveolar bone. Several studies have tried to characterize PDL’s mechanical properties. Due to the complex geometry and behavior of the PDL, its mechanical properties are still uncertain. The objective of this study is to compare two main mechanical models for PDL, hyper-viscoelastic model according to its nonlineartime dependent response and poroelastic model based on its structure that contains collagen fibers by using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). For this purpose, a threedimensionaland realistic model of human tooth with three main components including tooth, PDL, and alveolar bone is constructed by using computed tomography (CT scan) images. A uniaxial compression load is applied on the 3D model and mechanical responseof teeth and PDL including compressive stress is examined in both models of PDL. Results show that the overall behavior of PDL in two models doesn’t have significant differences. In poroelastic model maximum compressive stress is increased by 55.1% in PDL and9.48% in tooth compared with hyper-viscoelastic model.

Keywords:

Periodontal ligament , Poroelastic , Hyperviscoelastic , Finite Element Analysis , Mechanical response