Development of a System for Designing Customised Dental Implants
Njabulo.Mangena1*, Eriyeti.Murena1, Nicholas. Tayisepi1, Samson Mhlanga1
1Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department
Faculty of Industrial Technology
E-mail: *eriyeti.dube@nust.ac.zw
eriyeti@gmail.com
Tel: +263 9 282842 Ext: 2302
Teeth are essential for chewing and play an important role in speech generation. Yet teeth are the hardest organs in the human body such that, to date, their medical denture replacement when lost is by trial and error. This research presents the novel development of a system for designing and manufacturing dental implants based on CAD/CAM software systems. The research aims to generate a dental implants designing platform for meeting diverse specific patients’ different tooth cavity profiles requirement on replacement. The system is used to design replacement dental implants which will have occlusal contacts just like the occlusal contacts possessed by natural teeth. The approach used include using a suitable image mapping technique to achieve an exact shape of the tooth cavity area, in a two dimensional scan, onto which the implant is to be placed. This is succeeded by processing the 2D scan into an accurate 3D model and then using the 3D model, which clearly shows the tooth cavity, to design the suitable implant. Experimental simulation results achieved show that through utilising the CAD/CAM system developed orthodontists and dental technicians can exploit computer power in the designing and fabrication of durable and precise dental restorations in reasonably short time and cost-effectively. Future work is also discussed.