Oscillatory shear loading of bovine periodontal ligament--a methodological study.

This study examined the stress response of bovine periodontal ligament (PDL) under sinusoidal straining. The principle of the test consisted in subjecting transverse tooth, PDL and bone sections of known geometries to controlled oscillatory force application. The samples were secured to the actuator by support plates fabricated using a laser sintering technique to fit their contours to the tooth and the alveolar bone. The actuator was attached to the root slices located in the specimen's center. Hence the machine was able to push or pull the root relative to its surrounding alveolar bone. After determining an optimal distraction amplitude, the samples were cyclically loaded first in ramps and then in sinusoidal oscillations at frequencies ranging from 0.2 to 5 Hz. In the present study the following observations were made: (1) Imaging and the laser sintering technique can be used successfully to fabricate custom-made support plates for cross-sectional root-PDL-bone sections using a laser sintering technique, (2) the load-response curves were symmetric in the apical and the coronal directions, (3) both the stress response versus phase angle and the stress response versus. strain curves tended to "straighten" with increasing frequency, and (4) the phase lag between applied strain and resulting stress was small and did not differ in the intrusive and the extrusive directions. As no mechanical or time-dependent anisotropy was demonstrable in the intrusive and extrusive directions, such results may considerably simplify the development of constitutive laws for the PDL.