Flexural strength of fluorapatite-leucite and fuorapatite porcelains exposed to erosive agents in cyclic immersion

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to evaluate the fexural strength of two porcelain materials (IPS d.SIGN and IPS e.max Ceram) exposed to erosive agents. MATERIAL AND METHODS: One hundred and twenty bar-shaped specimens were made from each of fuorapatite-leucite porcelain (IPS d.SIGN) and fuorapatite porcelain (IPS e.max Ceram) and divided into 8 groups of 15 specimens each. Six groups were alternately immersed in the following storage agents for 30 min: deionized water (control), citrate buffer solution, pineapple juice, green mango juice, cola soft drink and 4% acetic acid. Then, they were immersed for 5 min in deionized water at 37ºC. Seven cycles were completed, totalizing 245 min. A 7th group was continuously immersed in 4% acetic acid at 80ºC for 16 h. The final, 8th, group was stored dry at 37ºC for 245 min. Three-point bending tests were performed in a universal testing machine. The data were analyzed statistically by 2-way ANOVA, Tukey's HSD test and t-test at signifcance level of 0.05. RESULTS: The fexural strengths of all groups of each porcelain after exposure to erosive agents in cyclic immersion did not differ signifcantly (p>0.05). For both types of porcelain, dry storage at 37ºC yielded the highest fexural strength, though without signifcant difference from the other groups (p>0.05). The fexural strengths of all groups of fuorapatite porcelains were signifcantly higher (p<0.05) than those of the fuorapatite-leucite porcelains. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that the erosive agents evaluated did not affect the fexural strength of the tested dental porcelains

Simulation of the onset of convection in a porous medium layer saturated by a couple-stress nanofluid

Linear and nonlinear stability analyses for the onset of time-dependent convection in a horizontal layer of a porous medium saturated by a couple-stress non-Newtonian nanofluid, intercalated between two thermally insulated plates, are presented. Brinkman and MaxwellGarnett formulations are adopted for nanoscale effects. A modified Darcy formulation that includes the time derivative term is used for the momentum equation. The nanofluid is assumed to be dilute and this enables the porous medium to be treated as a weakly heterogeneous medium with variation of thermal conductivity and viscosity, in the vertical direction. The general transport equations are solved with a Galerkin-type weighted residuals method. A perturbation method is deployed for the linear stability analysis and a Runge– Kutta–Gill (RKG) quadrature scheme for the nonlinear analysis. The critical Rayleigh number, wave numbers for the stationary and oscillatory modes and frequency of oscillations are obtained analytically using linear theory and the non-linear analysis is executed with minimal representation of the truncated Fourier series involving only two terms. The effect of various parameters on the stationary and oscillatory convection behavior is visualized. The effect of couple stress parameter on the stationary and oscillatory convections is also shown graphically. It is found that the couple stress parameter has a stabilizing effect on both the stationary and oscillatory convections. Transient Nusselt number and Sherwood number exhibit an oscillatory nature when time is small. However, at very large values of time both Nusselt number and Sherwood number values approach their steady state values. The study is relevant to the dynamics of biopolymers in solution in microfluidic devices and rheological nanoparticle methods in petroleum recovery