"An X-Ray Diffraction Study of Silver-Tin Amalgams" by James C. Moffet
 

Date of Award

5-1952

Degree Type

Master's Essay - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Dentistry

First Advisor

Arthur G. Barkow

Second Advisor

J. B. Greene

Third Advisor

Joseph F. Carroll

Abstract

Silver-tin amalgams of a definite composition have been used for some time as dental restorations. (Commercial alloys contain small amounts of several other elements.) Their value as such depends on many properties, chief among them being crushing strength, hardening time, and dimensional changes accompanying hardening. Experience has shown that each of these properties is heavily dependent on the particle size of the silver-tin alloy, as well as the trituration time, and vast amounts of empirical data have been collected which relate the above properties to these factors.

Within the last twenty years investigations have been undertaken to determine the setting mechanism of the dental amalgam with the hope of explaining the existing data on the amalgam properties. Such investigations have utilized either micrographic or x-ray (Debye-Scherrer) analysis. By their nature neither method has been capable of following phase transformations continually from the trituration action to the end of the setting process, since in either technique the specimen requires special preparation prior to the analysis.

This paper is an exploratory attempt to determine the setting reaction of silver-tin amalgams using an x-ray spectrometer to trace the complete process. The undertaking is justified by the fact that the existing theories are contradictory. Further justification is had by introducing an approach which can yield quantitative data immediately after trituration of the specimen. The changes in the spectrometer traces might be correlated with simultaneous dimensional data for a better understanding of expansion and contraction*

Comments

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Share

COinS