Effect of woven glass fibre reinforcement on the flexural strength of composites

Abstract

To measure and compare the flexural strength of composites reinforced with fibres, four groups of specimens (N = 10) were prepared from the combinations: Filtek Flow/Filtek Z250 and Esthet-X flow/Esthet-X dental composite. One group from each combination was reinforced with woven glass fibre (everStick net) and all the specimens subjected to three-point bend flexural testing. The mean and standard deviations for each test group were calculated and compared using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by pairwise Bonferroni T-tests at a preset alpha of p < 0.05. It was found that fibre reinforcement significantly (p < 0.001) increased the flexural strength of both types of composites. As the inclusion of only one layer of glass fibre net produced an increase of approximately 30% in the flexural strength of the composite samples, it can be speculated that multiple layers would increase it even more. The use of fibre-reinforcement to strengthen directly placed composite crowns and bridges will enable the clinician to provide a more cost effective service as well as aesthetic dentistry to more patients.