Dental & Oral Health

One of the important drawbacks of commercially used orthodontic aligner is the change regime (14 days) due to the ratelimiting step. Therefore, investigators are working on doing improvements to aligner materials, force systems, staging of tooth movements, and treatment planning. One of these trails is the incorporation of shape memory polymers (SMPs), a type of important stimuli-responsive smart polymers, which can recover their original shape upon exposure to external stimuli. The purpose of this presentation is showing how far our research is going regarding producing an active orthodontic aligner made up of shape memory polymer, through a 3D finite element simulation model and experimental testing.