A Study on Thermal Properties of All Ceramic Restorations. All Ceramics.

This study was conducted to investigate the thermal properties (thermal diffusivity, specific thermal capacity and thermal conductivity) of all ceramic restorative materials. Measurement of thermal properties of IPS Empress®, DiCOR® and adhesive resin cement Variolink II were performed by the Xenon flash method. The results obtained were as follows. Thermal diffusivity (×10-2cm2s-1) was 0.372-0.423 for IPS Empress®, 0.614 for DiCOR® and 0.191-0.193 for Variolink. Specific thermal capacity (Jg-1K-1) ranged from 0.695 to 0.872 for IPS Empress®, 1.119 for DiCOR® and 0.733-4.114 for Variolink. Thermal conductivity (Wm-1K-1) was 0.644-0.770 for IPS Empress®, 1.721 for DiCOR® and 0.297-0.475 for Variolink. Thermal conductivity of IPS Empress® was found to be less than that of human enamel, while that of DiCOR® was greater than that of human enamel. Thermal conductivity of Variolink was smaller than those of human enamel and dentin.The above results indicated that IPS Empress® had greater thermal insulation capability than human enamel and dentin and that DiCOR® had less.