The success of any fixed prosthesis depends on the accuracy of impressions. Finish line exposure has to be adequate during impression making. The goal of gingival retraction is to atraumatically displace gingival tissues to allow access for impression material to record the finish line and provide sufficient thickness of gingival sulcus so that the impression does not tear off during removal. N...

Though the necessity to place the finish line into the gingival sulcus obviously has a negative effect on the quality of the impression,4,8-10 aspects of gingival retraction have only been sparsely investigated.3-5 The aim of gingival retraction is to allow access for the impression material beyond the abutment margins and to create space for the impression material to be sufficiently thick. Te...

Purpose: To evaluate imbibition and syneresis in four commercially available irreversible hydrocolloid (alginate) impression materials at different time intervals (10, 20 and 30 minutes). Materials and methods: Eighty samples of four commercially available irreversible hydrocolloid (alginate) impression materials Algitex (DPI, Mumbai), Plastalgin (Septodont, Cedex, France), Zelgan 2002 (Dentspl...

Interocclusal records are an everyday necessity in routine prosthodontic practice. A number of materials have been advocated by several groups of workers over a length of time to be suitable for the purpose. In the present study, the accuracies exhibited by four commonly used interocclusal recording materials were compared when they were subjected to both the clinical and laboratory phases of j...

An elastomeric gel is a cross-linked polymer network swollen with a solvent (fluid). A continuum-mechanical theory to describe the various coupled aspects of fluid permeation and large deformations (e.g., swelling and squeezing) of elastomeric gels is formulated. The basic mechanical force balance laws and the balance law for the fluid content are reviewed, and the constitutive theory that we d...

The present invention is directed to devices and systems used in magnetic imaging environments that include an actuator device having an elastomeric dielectric film with at least two electrodes, and a frame attached to the actuator device. The frame can have a plurality of configurations including, such as, for example, at least two members that can be, but not limited to, curved beams, rods, p...

The Selective Laser Sintering Process of thermoplastics (SLS) enables the manufacturing of components with complex shape in a short time period without the manufacturing of a specific mold. However, this manufacturing process is limited by the restricted range of materials. In contrast to this primary shaping process, vacuum casting allows a quick, inexpensive and highly accurate process but it...