Dynamic mechanical thermal analysis of dental polymers. I. Heat-cured poly(methyl methacrylate)-based materials.

The visco-elastic characteristics of homogeneous, heterogeneous and fibre-reinforced poly(methyl methacrylate) for use as denture base resins were measured by a dynamic mechanical thermal analyser in the frequency range 0.033-90 Hz. Dynamic Young's modulus of both polyethylene woven yarn and the polyaramid plain fabric-reinforced acrylics showed considerable improvement over the conventional denture base, whereas the carbon fibre-reinforced acrylic produced results lower than expected. From the loss tangent curves of the homogeneous and heterogeneous methacrylates their transition temperatures were recorded and the reciprocals of both the alpha and beta absorption temperatures were plotted against frequency to obtain their respective activation energies.