Background
Clinical success depends on the contact strength and wear resistance of medical devices made of polymer materials. The scientific goal resulted from the problem of using different
Conclusions
The scratch hardness method allows for a more explicit ranking of orthodontic polymeric materials when measurements are made with a profilometer. The ranking of sliding wear resistance should be made separately.
Methods
Four commercial materials were compared. Shore hardness tests and a scratch test with a Rockwell indenter were performed. A sliding wear test was performed using the ball-on-disc method. Statistical PCA and correlation analyses were performed.
Results
The results of scratch hardness measurements using a contact profilometer correlated with the Shore hardness to a greater extent than measurements made using an optical microscope. PCA showed that Shore hardness explains 45% of the total variance in all the results across the materials. Conclusions: The scratch hardness method allows for a more explicit ranking of orthodontic polymeric materials when measurements are made with a profilometer. The ranking of sliding wear resistance should be made separately.