The fracture toughness test is believed as a clinically relevant method for assessing the fracture resistance of the dentinal restoratives. The objectives of this study were to measure the fracture toughness (K_1C) and microtensile bond strength of dentin-resin composite interface and compare their relationship for their use in evaluation of the integrity of the dentin-resin bond.

A minimum of six short-rod specimens for fracture toughness test and fifteen specimens for microtensile bond strength test was fabricated for each group of materials used. After all specimens storing for 24 hours in distilled water at 37℃, they were tensile-loaded with an EZ tester universal testing machin. Statistical analysis was performed using ANOVA and Tukey's test at the 95% confidence level, Pearson's coefficient was used to verify the correlation between the mean of fracture toughness and microtensile bond strength. FE-SEM was employed on fractured surface to describe the crack propagation.

Fracture toughness value of Clearfil SE Bond (SE) was the highest, followed by Adper Single Bond 2 (SB), OptiBond Solo (OB), ONE-STEP PLUS (OS), ScotchBond Multi-purpose (SM) and there was significant difference between SE and other 4 groups (p < 0.05). There were, however, no significant difference among SB, OB, OS, SM (p > 0.05). Microtensile bond strength of SE was the highest, followed by SB, OB, SM, OS and OS only showed significant lower value (p < 0.05). There was no correlation between fracture toughness and microtensile bond strength values. FE-SEM examination revealed that dentin bonding agent showed different film thickness and different failure pattern according to the film thickness.

From the limited results of this study, it was noted that there was statistically no correlation between K1C and µTBS. We can conclude that for obtaining the reliability of bond strength test of dentin bonding agent, we must pay more attention to the test procedure and its profound scrutiny.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of salivary contamination of teeth on bonding efficacy of self-priming and self-etching DBSs. The materials used were Single Bond(SB, self-priming system, 3M), Unifil Bond(UB, self-etching system, GC), and Scotchbond Multi-Purpose Plus(SM, 3M) as control. Forty five human molars randomly allocated to three groups as dentin bonding systems tested and embedded in epoxy resin. Then the specimens were wet-ground to expose flat buccal enamel surface or flat occlusal dentin surface and cut bucco-lingually to form two halves with slow speed diamond saw. One of them was used under non-contamination, other under contamination with saliva. The bonding procedure was according to the manufacturer's directions and resin composite(Z-100, 3M Dental Products, St. Paul, MN) was built-up on the bonded surface 5mm high. The specimens were ground carefully at the enamel-composite interface with fine finishing round diamond bur to create an hour-glass shape yielding bonded surface areas of 1.5±0.1mm². The specimens were bonded to the modified microtensile testing apparatus with cyanoacrylate, attached to the universal testing machine and stressed in tension at a CHS of 1mm/min.. The tensile force at failure was recorded and converted to a tensile stress(MPa). Mean values and standard deviations of the bond strength are listed in table. One-way ANOVA was used to determine significant difference at the 95% level.

The bond strength of SBMP and SB were not affected by salivary contamination, but that of UB was significantly affected by salivary contamination. These results indicate that DBSs with total etch technique seems less likely affected by salivary contamination in bonding procedure.