Comparação de limas ProFile GT Série X com ProFile GT através da caracterização por DRX e de um Estudo por Elementos Finitos.

Abstract

The emergence of NiTi alloys and the development of their properties, namely superelasticity, motivated the inclusion of such materials in files used in the clinical practice of Endodontics. These files present several advantages when compared to Stainless Steel files (still widely used today), especially their larger flexibility, whereby the improvement of these alloys over the last few years has deserved a growing attention by both the medical industry and medical community. Flexibility in endodontic files is paramount for the preparation of anatomically complex root canals, since it preserves the dental structure, limits the apical transport, reduces the risk of iatrogenic mistakes and allows the irrigant to flow and reach the apical foramen. Flexibility in NiTi files due to their superelastic behaviour mainly dependends not only on the crystallographic phases present in the alloy and the thermal, mechanical and chemical treatments to which the alloy has been subjected but also due to files’ geometry. Recently, the market has seen introduced the M-Wire, a NiTi alloy used in GTX files that, according to its manufacturer, has been treated in order to have a larger flexibility at body temperature than files built with conventional NiTi wire, for instance the one used in GT files. This study aims at contributing to the better understanding of the mechanisms behind the properties each kind of file presents and to find out supporting grounds that substantiate the manufacturer pretension, through the metallurgic characterization of GT and GTX files by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and through finite element models of the files under bending. Some experimental results are presented and discussed, being shown that, at body temperature, the GTX files accuse the presence of R Phase, contrary to the GT files, being their geometry very alike; as such, they are expected to be more flexible and clinically superior.