@article{ecfaf4a010b14167a1b4f2a639b01336,
title = "On the chipping and splitting of teeth",
abstract = "One of the most frequent fracture modes in teeth is chipping. It can lead to deterioration and ultimate loss of tooth function. Chips in enamel can also be used to gain insight into the evolutionary history of extant animal and fossil hominin species. In this study, chipping tests are performed on the surfaces of as-received or flattened human molars using hard indenters. The chips exhibit a characteristic scallop shape, with some influence from tooth curvature as well as from enamel anisotropy and inhomogeneity. Chipping fracture tends to follow easy interprism pathways, but inevitably involves breakage of bundles of mineralized prisms in the last stages of spallation. A simple relation describes how critical loads for chipping scale with distance of the occlusal contact from the specimen edge. Measured loads fall well within the range of biting forces exerted during normal oral function. A transition from chipping to splitting occurs at higher loads for contacts nearer the central axis of the tooth.",
keywords = "Chipping, Critical load, Dietary history, Enamel, Splitting, Teeth",
author = "Herzl Chai and Lee, {James J.W.} and Lawn, {Brian R.}",
note = "Funding Information: We wish to thank Peter Lucas and Paul Constantino at the George Washington University and Mark Bush at the University of Western Australia for helpful discussions on this work. Human teeth were supplied by the Paffenbarger Research Center at NIST. Bernhard Zipfel provided the photograph in Fig. 2 . This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant 0851351 ) and the Israeli Science Foundation (grant 0605414391 ). ",
year = "2011",
month = apr,
doi = "10.1016/j.jmbbm.2010.10.011",
language = "אנגלית",
volume = "4",
pages = "315--321",
journal = "Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials",
issn = "1751-6161",
publisher = "Elsevier Ltd.",
number = "3",
}