Fabrication, characterization, and optimization selection of ceramic particulate reinforced dental restorative composite materials

The objective of the article is to explore the fabrication of dental restorative composite materials and the ranking order using the preference selection index (PSI) as a multi criteria decision making (MCDM) technique under a set of conflict performance defining criteria (PDCs). The polymer matrix of the dental restorative composite was prepared using bisphenol a-glycidyl methacrylate (55 wt.%), triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (44 wt.%), camphorquinone (0.3 wt.%), and ethyl 4-(dimethylamino) benzoate (0.7 wt.%). Five different dental restorative composite material compositions were fabricated using hybrid nSiO ₂ -TiO ₂ particulates with a variation of nSiO ₂ (0, 2, 4, 6, 8 wt.%) while TiO ₂ is constant (15 wt.%). The results revealed that an increasing trend has been found in compressive strength, flexural strength, Vickers hardness, etc., while a decreasing trend has been shown in depth of cure, polymerization shrinkage, degree of conversion etc. The performance analysis of five dental composite formulations via the PSI method shows the following ranking order: nS4 > nS6 > nS2 > nS0 > nS8. The obtained experimental results are associated with the ranking order of the different sets of dental composite formulations. Hence, the preference selection index approach is one of the best techniques among MCDM techniques for ranking under different PDCs.