What can failed clinical restorations tell us?

This presentation will outline the application of descriptive (qualitative) fractography for clinical failure analysis of ceramic restorations to understand the failure event and assessing design or processing inadequacies. The fracture surface topography of clinically failed ceramic restorations including core materials (alumina, zirconia, lithium disilicate), and veneering ceramic chips for alumina, alumina-zirconia glass-infiltrated and PFM will be presented. Based on the recognition of fractographic features via microscopic means, maps of the crack path are generated reconstructing the sequence of the fracture event with identification of the location of the crack initiation site. Interesting findings with clinically relevant information as well as design and processing issues will be discussed.