Designing and manufacturing an inexpensive pinjet with suitable strength and adhesion to acrylic resin

During root canal treatment, whole or a part of the tooth crown may be lost. Post and core is a method of repairing a damaged crown, in which a pinjet dipped in acrylic resin is used to mold the tooth canal and make a cast post and core. The main goal of this research is to produce an inexpensive pinjet with required strength and proper adhesion to acrylic resin. Therefore, to determine a right material for pinjet, lap shear and tensile tests were performed on eight polymer materials to check the adhesion of pinjet to acrylic resin and its yield strength, respectively. To produce some pinjets, a plastic injection mold was built and Moldflow Insight software was used to determine the process parameters of the injection molding. The results showed that HIPS 7240 with the lowest price among the examined materials and sufficient adhesion to acrylic resin is a suitable material for the pinjet. Also, this material with a yield strength of 10.91 MPa had an appropriate strength to prevent plastic deformation during the post and core molding process. While the injection time, melt temperature, and mold temperature were considered to 1 s, 230 ˚C, and 25 ˚C, respectively in both simulation and experimental methods, the injection pressure was 19 and 18 MPa and the injection speed was obtained 0.3 and 0.27 cm/s respectively in the simulation and experiments. Producing a perfect pinjet shows the ability and accuracy of the simulation in proposing the process parameters of plastic injection molding.