Fracture Toughness of Resin Composites under Different Modes and Media: Review of Articles

This article aims to review various modes of fracture toughness of resin composites. Also, this study intends to review the papers on the fracture mode, namely “fractography”, under scanning electron microscopy finding fracture initiation site, and the effect of filler content on the fracture toughness of resin composites. It will also review the effect of aging on the fracture toughness of resin composites in different media, mainly distilled water, and acidic environment. In the review performed on fracture toughness of resin composites we used “fracture toughness (KIc)”, aging AND fracture toughness, AND fractography” of resin composites as the search strategy. The outcome of the review revealed that most of the studies investigated fracture toughness of resin composites under Mode I and less under mode II. However, some others looked at the fracture toughness of dental resin composites under mixed-mode loading conditions. It was also found that fracture toughness studies performed on the same types of resin composites resulted in different values of KIc. The differences were related to the method of performance that requires different specimen geometries.