Effect of shrinkage strain, modulus, and instrument compliance on polymerization shrinkage stress of light-cured composites during the initial curing stage

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of shrinkage strain, modulus, and instrument compliance on the polymerization shrinkage stress measurement of light-cured composites, and to determine whether the silorane-based low-shrinkage composite shows a low-polymerization shrinkage stress. Methods: A universal hybrid; Z250 (Z2), a flowable; Z350 (Z3), and a silorane-based; P90 (P9) composite was examined. A modified "bonded disc method" was used to measure the axial shrinkage strain of the composite. For the measurement of the initial modulus development of composites during light curing, a dynamic oscillatory shear test was undertaken using a custom-made oscillation rheometer. A frequency of 6 Hz and strain amplitude of 0.0091 rad for 20 s was employed and the complex shear modulus (G ^*) was determined. A newly designed stress-strain analyzer was made to measure the shrinkage stress of the composites with two modes: (1) high compliance, or (2) low compliance. The shift between the two modes was controlled by an On-Off switch of a negative feedback circuit. Theoretical shrinkage stress was calculated from the shrinkage strain and modulus measured above, and compared with experimentally measured stress. Data were analyzed with one-way ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc test (α = 0.05), and correlation analysis was done to investigate the relationship between measured stress and shrinkage strain, modulus, and theoretical stress. Results: The shrinkage strain of Z3 (4.12%) at 10 min was the highest, followed by Z2 (2.31%) and P9 (0.77%). At 10 s after light curing, Z2 showed the highest modulus (466.2 MPa), Z3 (154.1 MPa), and P9 the lowest (130.7 MPa). The measured stresses with low compliance were much higher than those with high compliance. With high compliance, the contraction stress of Z3 was the highest (2.75 MPa), followed by Z2 (1.54 MPa) and P9 (0.48 MPa). In low-compliance mode, the stresses of Z3 (7.93 MPa) and Z2 (7.48 MPa) were similar (p = 0.323) while the stress of P9 (3.23 MPa) was much lower. A strong correlation was observed between the theoretical stress and the measured stress with low compliance (R = 0.996). In high-compliance mode, the shrinkage strain also showed a near-linear relationship with the stress measured (R = 0.937), but the modulus showed a low correlation with the measured stress (R = 0.398). Significance: Depending on the instrument compliance, polymerization shrinkage stress showed significant differences for each material. In high-compliance shrinkage strain played a greater role, while in low-compliance shrinkage strain and elastic modulus contributed comparably in determining the shrinkage stress. The low-shrinkage silorane-based composite demonstrated considerable reduction in shrinkage strain and stress.