Resilient polymeric materials such as silicone elastomers are currently used for maxillofacial prostheses construction but the strength of these materials and their clinical performance need to be optimized with the addition of reinforcing fillers. This study investigates the effect of zirconia nanopowder addition on tear strength, tensile strength, elongation at break, Shore A hardness, surface roughness and cytotoxicity of VST-50 maxillofacial silicone. Silicone base was mixed with different amounts (1%, 2% and 3%) of zirconia nanopowder using a vacuum mixer. Silicone without filler was used as control for comparison. Scanning Electron Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy were utilized to assess the efficiency of high-shear vacuum mixing as filler dispersion method and the surface topography, respectively. Both SEM and AFM images showed that the zirconia nanopowder were distributed fairly well within the polymer. Statistically, highly significant increase in tear strength, tensile strength and hardness with non-significant decrease in elongation at break and non-significant increase in surface roughness were seen with 1% and 2% groups. Whereas with 3% group, there was significant improvement in tear strength, tensile strength and hardness but there was significant undesirable decrease in elongation and increase in roughness. Cytotoxicity test revealed that the addition of zirconia nanopowder was nontoxic to Rat Embryonic Fibroblast (REF) cells and there was non-significant change in the cell viability of all study groups after 24- and 72-hours incubation periods. In conclusion, the addition of 2% by weight nano zirconia to VST-50 maxillofacial silicone could be beneficial in enhancing its performance.
The aim of this study is interpretation well logs to determine Petrophysical properties of tertiary reservoir in Khabaz oil field using IP software (V.3.5). The study consisted of seven wells which distributed in Khabaz oilfield. Tertiary reservoir composed from mainly several reservoir units. These units are : Jeribe, Unit (A), Unit (A'), Unit (B), Unit (BE), Unit (E),the Unit (B) considers best reservoir unit because it has good Petrophysical properties (low water saturation and high porous media ) with high existence of hydrocarbon in this unit. Several well logging tools such as Neutron, Density, and Sonic log were used to identify total porosity, secondary porosity, and effective porosity in tertiary reservoir. For
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priorities of materials research due to their promising properties, especially in the field of thermoelectricity. The efficiency or performance of thermoelectric devices is expressed in terms of the thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) – a standard indicator of a material’s thermoelectric properties for use in cooling systems. The evaluation of ZT is principally determined by the thermoelectric characteristics of the nanomaterials. In this paper, a set of investigative computations was performed to study the thermoelectric properties of monolayer TMDCs according to the semiclassical treatment of the Boltzmann transport equation. It was confirmed that the thermoelectric properties of 2D materials can be greatly improved compared with thei
... Show MoreA nanocrystalline CdS thin film with 100 nm thickness has been prepared by thermal evaporation technique on glass substrate with substrate temperature of about 423 K. The films annealed under vacuum at different annealing temperature 473, 523 and 573 K. The X-ray diffraction studies show that CdS thin films have a hexagonal polycrystalline structure with preferred orientation at (002) direction. Our investigation showed the grain size of thin films increased from 9.1 to 18.9 nm with increasing the annealing temperature. The optical measurements showed that CdS thin films have direct energy band gap, which decreases with increasing the annealing temperature within the range 3.2- 2.85 eV. The absorbance edge is blue shifted. The absorption
... Show MoreABSTRACT Background: Bracket rebonding is a common problem in orthodontics which may result in many drawbacks. The aims of this study were to evaluate the effects of application of two enamel protective agents “Icon†and “ProSeal†on shear bond strength before and after rebonding of stainless steel orthodontic brackets using conventional orthodontic adhesive and to assess the site of bond failure. Materials and methods: Fifty sound extracted human upper first premolar teeth were selected and randomly divided into two equal groups; the first time bonding and the rebonding groups (n=30). Each group was subdivided into control, Icon and ProSeal subgroups. The enamel protective agents were applied after etching (precondi
... Show MoreBackground: The present study was carried out to compare shear bond strength of sapphire bracket bonded to zirconium surface after using different methods of surface conditioning and assessment of the adhesive remnant index. Materials and methods: The sample composed of 40 zirconium specimens divided into four groups; the first group was the control, the second group was conditioned by sandblast with aluminum oxide particle 50 μm, the third and fourth group was treated by (Nd: YAG) laser (1064nm)(0.888 Watt for 5 seconds) for the 1st laser group and (0.444 Watt for 10 seconds) for the 2nd laser group. All samples were coated by z-prime plus primer. A central incisor sapphire bracket was bonded to all samples with light cure adhesive res
... Show MoreTraumatic radial nerve injury in humeral shaft fracture is the most common traumatic nerve injury in long-bone fracture, with overall prevalence 2-18%, ranging from traction to complete transection. Spontaneous recovery may reach 88%. The aim of the study is to assess the sensitivity & specificity of the ultrasound to detect the radial nerve injury and to see if this can be used as a diagnostic test. This is a prospective study on 17 adult patients with a closed fracture of the humeral shaft, dividing into two groups, the first group of 7 patients had signs and symptoms of radial nerve palsy at presentation and the second group of 10 patients had intact radial nerve function was considered as a control group. All these patients had at leas
... Show MoreThe CdSe pure films and doping with Cu (0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 4.0wt%) of thickness 0.9μm have been prepared by thermal evaporation technique on glass substrate. Annealing for all the prepared films have been achieved at 523K in vacuum to get good properties of the films. The effect of Cu concentration on some of the electrical properties such as D.C conductivity and Hall effect has been studied.
It has been found that the increase in Cu concentration caused increase in d.c conductivity for pure CdSe 3.75×10-4(Ω.cm)-1 at room temperatures to maximum value of 0.769(Ω.cm)-1 for 4wt%Cu.All films have shown two activation energies, where these value decreases with increasing doping ratio. The maximum value of activation energy was (0.319)eV f
BixSb2-xTe3 alloys with different ratios of Bi (x=0, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 2) have been prepared, Thin films of these alloys were prepared using thermal evaporation method under vacuum of 10-5 Torr on glass substrates at room temperature with different deposition rate (0.16, 0.5, 0.83) nm/sec for thickness (100, 300, 500) respectively. The X–ray diffraction measurements for BixSb2-xTe3 bulk and thin films indicate the polycrystalline structure with a strong intensity of peak of plane (015) preferred orientation with additional peaks, (0015) and (1010 ) reflections planes, which is meaning that all films present a very good texture along the (015) plane axis at different intensities for each thin film for different thickness. AFM measureme
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