7. Compact Fracture Specimen for Characterization of Dental Composites

Dental composites are becoming increasingly popular due to their tooth-like color and appearance. Most short-term failures of dental composites are due to mechanical damage, such as cracking. Therefore, many of these failures might be prevented through the use of a self-healing dental composite. High-quality characterization is critical in the development of self-healing materials. Since healing creates uncertainty about the location of the crack-tip, tapered double cantilever beam (TDCB) specimens are often used for their crack length independence when measuring the fracture toughness and healing efficiency of self-healing materials. Because of the high cost of dental composite materials, small cost-effective TDCB samples, about one third of the standard size, were designed and optimized using rapid prototyping (Objet 3D Printer).