The purpose of the dental ridge analysis was to develop a basic
theory/conclusion about how the pattern and dimensions of that structure
relate to how it tolerates stress. Two points of interest in our
analysis were the external shell thickness of each structure and the internal
pore size of the structures. Two distinct questions were asked:
1. How does the shell thickness of the structure affect the stress distribution
caused by the load?
2. How does the pore size affect the stress distribution in the structure
when the load is applied?
Team 1 worked together to model seven different dental ridges in Pro/ENGINEER.
However, the final structural analysis was only based on three successful
runs in Pro/MECHANICA since the complexity of the pore and plate patterns
restricted the available computers’ capabilities. Since the computers
were not robust enough to generate many of the structural analyses or to
simulate the stress at the desired scale (micrometers), the dimensions
were scaled up to millimeters and the structure was symmetrically divided
into quarters to cut down on the number of elements in the analysis.
Even with these alterations, the computation time was still cumbersome
and intolerable. With these restrictions, however, a fair analysis
and conclusion were drawn for the stress affects of varying shell thickness
and pore size.