Mechanical Property of 3D-printed Dental Implant Surgical Guide by Build-parameters

Objectives: Dental implant surgical guide must tolerate the stress during surgery, and it depends on the 3D printing build parameters. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of build position and layer orientation on the accuracy and the mechanical property of resin for 3D printed dental implant surgical guide.
Methods: The resin for dental implant surgical guide was printed with Digital Light Processing (DLP) based 3D printer (ND-5100, Nextdent, Netherlands). The forty specimens were printed in a rectangular column shape at different angles of 0, 45, and 90 degrees. After printing, post-treatment and post-curing processes were performed according to the manufacturer's instructions. Digital Vernier calipers were used to measure the accuracy of the specimens in height, width, and length, and the Universal Testing Machine (UTM) (5942, Instron, USA) was used for 3-point bending test. After the test, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) (JSM-6701F, JEOL, Japan) was used to observe the fracture surface analysis. The results were statistically compared with one-way ANOVA, with post-hoc analysis using Tukey’s test.
Results: The layer orientation of the specimens that were on the platform had influence on the accuracy and the flexural strength. The test samples were printed with the highest flexural strength at 90 degrees. And statistic test revealed a difference of the 90 degree from the other groups (p < 0.05). The fracture conditions of the specimens differed depending on the layer orientation.
Conclusions: The 3D printing build parameters influences the accuracy and the mechanical property of the 3D printed object. Layer orientation of the specimens affects the flexural property. Thus, it may affect the quality of the dental implant surgical guide.