Zhang participating in NIH machinable ceramics grant

Associate Professor Guangming Zhang (ME/ISR) is participating in a five-year, $5.9 million National Institutes of Health grant, "Machinable Ceramics: Optimizing Performance and Properties." This grant is funded through NIH's National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR).

The program will develop fundamental understanding of damage initiation and accumulation in all-ceramic layered dental crowns as a function of materials, crown and tooth preparation design, and fabrication variables.

Dr. Zhang and Professor Dianne Rekow of the Basic Sciences and Craniofacial Biology and Orthodontics Department in the College of Dentistry at New York University are responsible for the area of complex loading, crown geometry and performance. This includes research in:

Complex loading on layer structures, both flat and crown geometry (sloping cusps)
- Performance evaluation of fabricated crowns under complex loading

Manufacturing issues such as
- investigation of crack formation
- maximum principal stress distributions
- design of experimentaiton: cement layer

Experimental and theory/modeling
- Finite element modeling: monolythic crown system
- Finite element modeling: flat joint surface
- Finite element modeling: crown geometry considered
- Finite element modeling: a layered crown system

The Machinable Ceramics Program is a continuation of seven years' worth of previous NIDCR funding and teamwork on monolithic ceramic crown materials, which has resulted in more than 70 publications, plus proceedings and abstracts. Four PhD dissertations have been based on the work. The strategic approach of the new work will be to move from flat layer structures with simple loads to crowns on real teeth with complex loads.

In addition to the NIDCR funding, corporate partners are providing an estimated $1.5 million in cost sharing. These partners are: