55 Nitinol wire: force developed as a function of "elastic memory".

Closing spaces is done either by translation of the edgewise brackets over an archwire or by the use of closing loops of some common design. This investigation suggests the concept of the further refinement of the "wire rubber band" as a means of closing spaces. Advantages of such a wire hypothetically would be to level the dentition, align the dentition, and condense spaces in the dentition with only one or two stretched nickel titanium wires having the proper temperature transition range (TTR). The temperature of the mouth would make such wires return to their original prestretched length. A correctly-sized wire would have sufficient stiffness at mouth temperature, and it would be kept at or above its TTR. The system eliminates friction from edgewise bracket translation and also the use of many auxiliary closing devices as well as reducing the number of archwire changes, thus saving chairside time.