The effect of a bonding agent and thermo-mechanical cycling on the bond strength of a glass-ceramic to gold and cobalt-chromium alloys

To evaluate the effects of bonding agent and thermo-mechanical cycling on the flexural bond strength of a gold and cobalt-chromium alloy to a feldspathic ceramic. Sixty-four metal bars were fused (3 × 25 × 0.5 mm 3 ): 32 with a gold alloy and 32 with a cobalt-chromium (Co-Cr) alloy. Over the bars’ central area (8 × 3 mm 2 ), a bonding agent and two glass-ceramic layers were fired, totaling 1 mm in ceramic thickness. Eight specimens of each alloy were randomly divided according to the bonding agent (application or the absence thereof) and the thermo-mechanical cycle (3,000 thermo-cycles and 20,000 mechanical-cycles; or no cycling). The flexural bond strength between the metal alloy and the ceramic was evaluated by a three-point bending test and data were subjected to three-way ANOVA and Tukey’ st est (α = 0.05). The failure mode was classified. N os ignificant interactions were observed among the three factors evaluated (alloy, bonding agent, and thermo-mechanical cycling; p = 0.5734). There was no statistically significant difference between the alloys (p = 0.8559). The interaction between alloy/bonding agent (p = 0.0001) showed that, for the gold alloy, the group with the bonding agent showed mean values of flexural bond strength significantly higher than those of the group without the bonding agent, while, for the Co-Cr alloy, the groups with or without bonding agent had similar mean values of flexural bond strength. The interaction between alloy/thermo-mechanical cycling (p = 0.0001) showed that, for the gold alloy, the non-cycled group had flexural bond strength mean values significantly greater than those of the cycled group, while for the Co-Cr alloy, both non-cycled and cycled groups had similar mean values. The bonding agent significantly improved the flexural bond strength between the ceramic and the gold alloy, but had no influence on the Co-Cr alloy. Thermo-mechanical cycling decreased the flexural bond strength of the gold alloy specimens, but did not affect the Co-Cr specimens.