INFLUENCE OF MULTI-WALLED CARBON NANOTUBES CONTENT ON THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF COLD AND HOT CURED ACRYLIC RESIN FOR DENTURE BASE.

The main objective of this work is to investigate the effect of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on the mechanical properties of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) reinforced by MWCNTs of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 wt. % contents. The mechanical properties investigated in the present study are compressive strength, apparent modulus of elasticity, modulus of resilience, modulus of toughness and ductility at yield. PMMA is prepared at both hot and cold acrylic resins to be used as denture base materials. Compression test was considered as a useful tool to describe the mechanical properties of the PMMA/ MWCNTs tested composites. The tests have been carried out on a digital controlled universal testing machine. Based on the experiments, it is shown that the mechanical properties of the cold PMMA were higher than that measured for the hot at 0 wt. %, MWCNTs, while at 0.1 wt. %, the mechanical properties of the hot MWCNTs/PMMA composites were higher than the cold ones. On the other hand, it was found that after 0.1 wt. %, with increasing MWCNTs content the mechanical properties decreased gradually for both cold and hot composites. The improvement in the strength at 0.1 wt. % may be due to the interfacial shear strength between nanofiller and matrix that was relatively high due to formation of cross links or supra molecular bonding which cover or shield the nanofiller that in turn prevent propagation of crack. From this study, it can be concluded that hot cured composites are better than cold cured composites as denture base materials.