Yield strength of zirconia and glass fibre-reinforced posts.

The aim of this in vitro study was to evaluate the yield strengths of glass fibre-reinforced composite (FRC) posts and zirconia dioxide ceramic (ZDC) posts. Tapered glass FRC posts (DentinPost) and ZDC posts (Cerapost) of three sizes in diameter (ISO 50, 90, 110) were used for bending tests. Conventional prefabricated titanium posts of the same sizes served as control groups. The 0.2% yield strengths (R(0.2)) were tested on a universal testing machine. As zirconia posts fractured before they were yielded 0.2%, the fracture strength instead of the yield strength was recorded for these posts. One-way and two-way anova and Bonferroni-Dunn's multiple comparison tests were performed for the statistical analysis. The mean 0.2% yield strengths of the posts were 27 +/- 1 N for glass fibre-reinforced posts and 58 +/- 4 N for zirconia posts of ISO 50 (control group: 54 +/- 3 N). For ISO 90 yield strengths of 52 +/- 4 N for glass fibre-reinforced posts, 117 +/- 20 N for zirconia posts and 117 +/- 11 N for the control group were obtained. For ISO 110 mean yield strengths amounted to 73 +/- 5 N for glass fibre-reinforced posts, 166 +/- 23 N for zirconia posts and 141 +/- 12 N for the control group. Significantly higher yield strength was recorded for the zirconia and the titanium posts compared with the glass fibre-reinforced posts for the tested ISO sizes.