The development of dental alloys conserving precious metals: improving corrosion resistance by controlled ageing.

To determine the conditions which confer desirable mechanical properties and corrosion resistance upon dental alloys, age-hardening mechanism and the associated structural changes were studied by means of resistometric measurements, hardness tests, electron microscope observations and electron diffraction studies. Five commercial dental alloys, a high-gold content alloy, a low-gold alloy and three Au-Ag-Pd silver-based alloys and two experimental gold alloys, were examined. The structural and morphological changes which gave rise to age-hardening were classified into five types of phase transformation, i.e., (1) the formation of the AuCu I type superlattice and its twinning characterized by a stair-step mode, (2) the formation of the AuCu II type super-lattice with periodic antiphase domain structure, (3) the precipitation of the CuPd superlattice with fct structure analogous to the AuCu I type, (4) spinodal decomposition giving rise to a modulated structure and (5) the formation of the lamellar structure developed from grain boundaries by discontinuous precipitations. (1), (2) and (3) made a contribution to corrosion resistance superior to (4) and (5). A lamellar structure was prone to a high corrosion rate. The results obtained in this study are useful in predicting age-hardening characteristics and structural changes associated with corrosion, because the microstructural variation induced by ageing as well as nobility of alloys affects greatly their corrosion resistance.