The Effect of Glass and Polyethylene Fiber Reinforcement on Flexural Strength of Provisional Restorative Resins: An In Vitro Study

The aim is to evaluate and compare the flexural strength of different provisional restorative materials reinforced with glass and polyethylene fibers. A total of 90 samples were prepared and divided into three groups based on the type of fiber reinforcement, unidirectional S-glass (Splint-It) and ultra-molecular weight polyethylene (Ribbond). Unreinforced samples served as control group. Again each group was subdivided into three subgroups based on type of provisional restorative resins, heats cure polymethyl methacrylate, self-cure poly methyl methacrylate and self-cure bis-acryl composite. Samples were loaded in a universal testing machine until fracture occurs. The mean flexural strengths (MPa) were subjected to the one-way ANOVA, followed by the Tukey-HSD test at a significance level of 0.001. The result shows all the fiber reinforced samples possessed greater strength than the control samples. In control samples, the heat cure poly methyl methacrylate resin (72.74 ± 2.28 MPa) had the greatest flexural strength, followed by self-cure bis-acryl composite (67.05 ± 2.35 MPa) and self-cure poly methyl methacrylate resin (52.88 ± 1.90 MPa). In both heat and self-cure poly methyl methacrylate resin, the polyethylene fiber reinforcement (96.00 ± 2.63 MPa, 86.17 ± 1.92 MPa) provides the greatest strength than glass fiber reinforcement (92.68 ± 1.58 MPa, 76.40 ± 2.11 MPa). In self-cure bis-acryl composite, the glass fiber (105.95 ± 3.07 MPa) shows better reinforcement than polyethylene fiber (99.41 ± 1.74 MPa).The fibers reinforcement increases the flexural strength of provisional restorative resins.