An in vitro Evaluation of Friction Characteristics of Conventional Stainless Steel and Self-ligating Stainless Steel Brackets with different Dimensions of Archwires in Various Bracket-archwire Combination.

AIM: The purpose of this research is to compare the frictional attributes of stainless steel conventional brackets and self-ligating stainless steel brackets with different dimensions of archwires.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The test was carried with two sets of maxillary brackets: (1) Conventional stainless steel (Victory Series), (2) stainless steel self-ligating (SmartClip) without first premolar brackets. Stainless steel, nickel-titanium (NiTi), and beta-Ti which are the types of orthodontic wire alloys were tested in this study. To monitor the frictional force, a universal testing machine (Instron 33R 4467) that comprises 10 kg tension load cell was assigned on a range of 1 kg and determined from 0 to 2 kg, which allows moving of an archwire along the brackets. One-way analysis of variance was used to test the difference between groups. To analyze the statistical difference between the two groups, Student's t-test was used.

RESULTS: For Victory Series in static friction, p-value was 0.946 and for kinetic friction it was 0.944; at the same time for SmartClip, the p value for static and kinetic frictional resistance was 0.497 and 0.518 respectively. Hence, there was no statistically significant difference between the NiTi and stainless steel archwires.

CONCLUSION: It is concluded that when compared with conventional brackets with stainless steel ligatures, self-ligating brackets can produce significantly less friction during sliding. Beta-Ti archwires expressed high amount of frictional resistance and the stainless steel archwires comprise low frictional resistance among all the archwire materials.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: In orthodontics, frictional resistance has always had a major role. Its ability to impair tooth movement leads to the need for higher forces to move the teeth and it extends the treatment time which results in loss of posterior anchorage. Friction in orthodontics is related with sliding mechanics when a wire is moving through one or a series of bracket slots.