A STUDY ON TENSILE STRENGTH AND PHYSICAL ALTERATION OF THERMALLY RECYCLED METAL BRACKETS

열처리한 재생금속 bracket의 인장강도와 물리적 변화에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study was to measure and compare tensile strength for 3 types of new direct-bond brackets and the same brackets after recycling and to evaluate recycled brackets to determine the extent of physical alteration after recycling. Three types of new direct-bond brackets were bonded to recently extracted human premolar teeth and the tensile strength was measured by Universal Testing Machine. The brackets were recycled by thermal process and the tensile test was repeated. To determine the extent of physical alteration after recycling, the slot width and the hardness of metal brackets were measured and to analyze the microstructure of the brackets, photographs of the bracket microstructure were taken. Following results were obtained: 1. The tensile strength of recycled brackets was lower than that of new brackets, but there was no statistically significant difference. (p>0.05) 2. In the new and recycled brackets, the tensile strength of mini-mesh base bracket was statistically higher than that of conturlok base bracket, $(p\leq0.05)$ but there was no statistically significant difference between production of other companies. (p>0.05) 3. The slot width of metal bracket was enlarged from 0.459mm to 0.469mm as a result of the recycling process. (p>0.005) 4. As temperature was increased in thermal treatment, the grains of bracket metal gradually became coarser and the hardness was decreased.