Ceramics are favored for their chemical inertness, biocompatibility, and aesthetics. But current biomechanical ceramics tend to fail after an indecently short lifetime, sometimes endangering the life of the human host.
Hertzian testing is used to study the damage modes leading to failure of dental ceramics.
Strengths are severely and progressively degraded by the damage. Micrographs courtesy Irene Peterson and Yeon-Gil Jung. The program is conducted jointly with researchers from the University of Maryland at College Park and the University of Medicine and Dentistry at New Jersey.