[Rheological studies on deformation for dental waxes. 2. Stress relaxation behavior of inlay wax (author's transl)].

The rheological properties of inlay wax were investigated by experiment of stress relaxation, thermal expansion, thermal analysis and X-ray diffraction. The results obtained were as follows. The solid-solid phase transition caused by phase transition of paraffin was observed. The stress relaxation curves of inlay wax were obtained at various temperature, and from these curves the stress relaxation master curve was composed by application of time-temperature superposition principle. The temperature dependence of sift factor was devided into two regions of Arrhenius type, and the activation energy was about 60 kcal/mol at the temperature lower than 23 degrees C and 120 kcal/mol at higher temperature. This fact suggests that the relaxation mechanism of inlay wax can be classified into two different modes. The relaxation mechanism at lower temperature region is explained by crystalline relaxation, and at higher temperature is considered to depend upon the solid-solid phase transition process of inlay wax. Calculating from the activation energy, for each 2 degrees C rise in temperature, the rate of rheological change for inlay wax is approximately two-fold at lower temperature region, and about four-fold at higher temperature region.