I am currently working on the restored tooth in the context of restorative dentistry. My goal is to contribute to the improvement of dental care in terms of mechanical strength. I therefore conduct studies at different scales on dental tissues and the entire restored tooth.
In order to propose more efficient restoration techniques and materials, I study the layers that make up the restored tooth, namely: (1) the tooth and in particular its main tissue, dentine; (2) the hybrid layer (interface tooth - restoration biomaterial); (3) the restoration biomaterial as well as the entire restored tooth. These studies at different scales require knowledge and possibly a model:
- the microstructure of healthy and restored tissues (tissue scale)
- the geometry of the tooth and its possible restoration (organ scale)
Knowledge of anchor tissues is crucial, yet they are still poorly understood in terms of microstructure and induced mechanical property gradients. W. Wang's thesis (2016) was the first work on this scale (tissue scale) and a second thesis (A. Hemmati) was started on this theme to further understand structure-property relations. The purpose of the organ-wide counterpart of this work is to understand the behaviour of the restored tooth by modelling it as a whole. The idea is to propose "patient specific" restorations (optimized for the patient's dental morphology) or at least "specific localization" (optimized according to the location in the tooth based on work on the scale of the tissue). A first thesis on the subject has been defended (K. Shindo, 2019) and several projects are based on the first bricks laid in this thesis.