Application of zirconia surface coating to improve fracture resistance and stress distribution of zirconia ceramic restorations

Abstract Zirconia ceramic restoration (ZCR) has a higher fracture incidence rate than metal ceramic restoration. Different surface treatments were used to improve fracture performance of ZCR such as grit blasting (GB) by aluminium oxide powder. This type of surface treatment generate residual stresses on veneering ceramic causing crack initiation and ending with a fracture. In order to overcome the stress generated by GB, zirconia surface coating is used as a surface treatment to improve fracture resistance and to accommodate stresses along the ZCR layers. Fifty zirconia ceramic crowns were fabricated and divided according to the type of surface treatment into three groups; the first group is (ZG), involving 20 cores were coated with a mixture of partially-sintered zirconia powder (PZP) and glaze ceramic powder; the second group is (ZL), including of 20 cores were coated with PZP and liner ceramic paste. The third group is grit blasting (GB), preparing of 10 fully sintered cores at 1350 °C which then abraded by 50 µm aluminium oxide powder. The groups ZG and ZL were further subdivided into ZG26, ZG47, ZL26 and ZL47 based on two PZP sizes (47 and 26 µm). Each treated core was veneered with the veneering ceramic layer. Fracture resistance (FR) was measured by the universal testing machine. Finite element analysis (FEA) was used to simulate the stress distributions on the coated and non-coated zirconia crown models. The ZG47 group had higher FR (647.92 ± 97.33 N) and a significant difference (P