Time-temperature behavior for creep of dental amalgam.

From 0 to 24 hours at an initial static stress of 34.5 MPa and in the temperature range of 0 to 60 degrees C, the creep behavior of four different one-week-old dental amalgams was monitored in a recently developed mini-specimen creep apparatus. In most instances the behavior could not be described by a linear relationship. Therefore, the usefulness of calculating creep rate based upon only two times, i.e., 1 and 4 hours, must be questioned. On the other hand, the observed creep kinetics were found to follow accepted nonlinear models of dislocation/obstacles interactions which may be thermally activated.