Properties of dental biomaterials

Abstract Understanding the properties of dental biomaterials is important in order for comparisons with the properties of oral hard and soft tissues prior to clinical applications. Various dental restorations tend to fail due to a number of reasons such as distortion or mechanical failure. The dental restorations are sometimes incompatible with the supporting oral tissues due to the interface or the substrate failure. Although no dental biomaterial has been reported as having ideal properties to date, it is worth mentioning that the performance and clinical success of dental biomaterials is strongly associated with their physical, mechanical, and biological properties. Ideally, the biomaterials properties should closely match to the properties of the lost tissues to be replaced. For the clinical performance and success, a biomaterial must pass the required criteria for various physical, mechanical, and biological properties during the characterization and testing phase. The aim of this chapter is to discuss various physical, mechanical, and biological properties of dental biomaterials and related interactions.