ARUP; ISBN: 978-0-9562121-5-3 - CMBBE 2012 - Cardiff University

edding them up to the half into a resin (Technovit 4004, Heraeus Kulzer GmbH & Co.
KG, Germany). The specimens were positioned on the holder 30° from its long axis
(Figure 2).
As a next step implant displacements and rotations were measured using the selfdeveloped
biomechanical hexapod measurement system (HexMeS) which is composed
basically of three components: A Hexapod high precision robot (PI M-850.50, Physik
Instrumente, Karlsruhe, Germany) to apply forces and torques to a dental specimen, a
high precision 3D force/torque transducer (ATI FTSGamma 130/10, Schunk Spann-
und Greiftechnik, Lauffen/Neckar, Germany) for force and torque measurement and an
optical system for position registration, consisting of an aluminium cube, equipped with
three pin-holes (diameter of the holes: 2µm, Melles-Griot, Bensheim, Germany) and
back-illuminated with a laser (35 mW, 658 nm, Laser 2000, Wessling, Germany), and
three video-cameras with macro-zoom optics (JAI CV-M1, Stemmer-Imaging, Puchheim,
Germany). All components are connected via a computer network and controlled
by a self-developed software. The experiments were run as follows: Specimens were
equipped with the laser cube and mounted in the setup, the Hexapod was positioned
such that a tip was in contact with the abutment (Figure 3), and by moving the tip,
forces, and/or torques were applied to the specimens. Resulting displacements were registered
by measuring the movement of the laser illuminated pin-holes with the video
cameras. The total distance for the hexapod’s movement was given to be 0.5 mm.
Figure 2: Specimen embedded in the resin in 30° from the holder
long axis.
4. RESULTS
4.1 Numerical Results
30°
Figure 3: Measurement set-up: Specimen
mounted on the holder and loaded by moving
the hexapod 0.5 mm downward perpendicular
to the specimen.
Maximum displacements of the implants were related to the geometry. Most of the mini
implants showed deflections at the assumed position of the crown (point of force application)
of 258 to 400 µm, except for the Komet MicroPlant (2.5x15 mm) which showed
the lowest displacement (125 µm). However, the highest displacement of 799 µm was
observed with the K.S.I.-Bauer Schraube implants (3.0x18.5 mm, Figure 4).
3