Comparative study of impact strength between reinforced and unreinforced acrylic specimens

Low impact strength is one of the reasons for the fracture of removable or complete acrylic dentures. Twenty unreinforced Heat cure specimens were fabricated and compared with twenty reinforced Heat cure specimens to assess the amount of reinforcement offered by commercially available stainless steel meshwork. Each specimen was in 12X11X10 in dimensions. Charpey's Impact test machine was used to measure the amount of absorbed impact energy. One way ANOVA test was used to compare the data. The absorbed impact energy was high for the reinforced specimens when compared to the unreinforced specimen. There fore it is concluded that the commercially available stainless steel meshwork offers great reinforcement against the extra oral and intra oral forces encountered during denture usage.