Design and simulation of a dental implant for the Indonesian population

Abstract

The growing senior citizen population of Indonesia has led to an increase in cases of edentulism amongst the population there. Current dental implants are unsuitable due to morphological differences in the oral anatomy between people of European ancestry and Indonesian ancestry. This fuels the need for a dental implant to be designed specifically for the Indonesian population in mind. The objectives of this study are to design a new dental implant specifically suitable for the average Indonesian woman and to study its mechanical behavior under normal physiological loading conditions through the use of nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) software MSC Marc™. The size of the dental implant is determined through statistical analysis of anthropometric data from five Indonesian women with ages from 46 to 59 years old. Four conceptual designs are generated, and only one is selected as the final design. A three – dimensional (3 – D) model of the dental implant is created by using the computer – aided design software (SolidWorks™). A 3 – D model of the posterior mandible is created by using CT – scan images. These two 3 – D models are combined inside an FEA software and their combined mechanical behavior is simulated. The results show that the equivalent von Mises stress on the implant is within acceptable limits. Furthermore, other results such as the maximum principal stress on the bone, maximum compressive stress on the bone, and maximum shear stress on the bone, indicates that a dental implant has been designed for the average Indonesian population which can perform reasonably well under normal physiological loading conditions with minimal risk of failure. Further studies are needed to verify this, but for now, the results show potential.