Capturing motions and forces of the human masticatory system to replicate chewing and to perform dental wear experiments

One way to evaluate the life-time performance of dental restorative materials is to use in vitro dental wear simulators, which generate accelerated artificial dental wear on dental restorative components outside of the human oral environment. However, the work of several researchers has questioned the reliability of these in vitro results as a consequence of significant result variations produced by different types of dental wear simulators testing identical dental specimens. Natural six degree of freedom (DOF) mandibular movements and other characteristics of the human masticatory system are not replicated by any of these available simulators. A simulator replicating and controlling 6 DOF mandibular movements and occlusal bite forces improves this situation. This paper presents a method by which accurate jaw motion data can be obtained using a conventional 6 DOF motion capturing system and a method of measuring occlusal bite forces. The data obtained have subsequently been used as input signals for a new 6 DOF dental wear simulator capable of generating single and multi-contact wear formations in dental wear studies.