ABSTRACT
The tooth undergoes mastication, whereby it experiences changing loading rates. Hence, the effect of loading rate on the nanohardness of dental enamel nanocomposites is one of the most important aspects governing the reliable performance of a tooth in service as well as for in-depth scientific understanding of the mechanism of the contact events. Such information would be useful in the development of bio-inspired synthetic structures and their subsequent utilization in functional applications. So far, there has not been any significant systematic investigation on the influence of loading rate strictly on the nanohardness of tooth enamel. Therefore, our aim in this chapter is to study the effect of loading rate on the nanohardness and Young’s modulus of human tooth enamel employing the novel nanoindentation technique.
