Orthodontic appliances with tapered archwire slots
Assignee3M Innovative Properties Company
InventorsLee C. Yick, Ming-Lai Lai
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Provided are orthodontic appliances and related methods in which at least one region of at least one sidewall of an archwire slot is tapered relative to an opposing sidewall. This feature can allow the archwire slot to conform to the slight twist that occurs in the archwire when the archwire is placed in asymmetric torque. Advantageously, this feature can distribute the contact stress between the archwire and appliance over a much larger surface area compared with conventional appliances, leading to a dramatic and surprising increase in torque strength and providing other ancillary benefits.
Claims30
An orthodontic appliance comprising:
- a base;
- a body extending outwardly from the base;
- and
- an elongated archwire slot extending across the body along a generally mesial-distal direction, the slot at least partially bounded by a bottom wall and a pair of substantially planar sidewalls, wherein at least one region of at least one sidewall is tapered to provide a transverse slot dimension that varies along the length of the archwire slot, the pair of sidewalls having an relative angular deviation ranging from about 0.5 to about 10 degrees.
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An orthodontic appliance comprising:
- a base;
- a body extending outwardly from the base;
- and
- an elongated archwire slot extending across the body along a generally mesial-distal direction, the slot at least partially bounded by a bottom wall and a pair of opposing sidewalls, wherein at least one sidewall is tapered to provide a transverse slot dimension that varies along the length of the archwire slot, whereby the transverse slot dimension monotonically increases or decreases over about 30 to about 75 percent of the overall length of the archwire slot.
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A method of enhancing torque strength in a ceramic orthodontic appliance comprising:
- providing a ceramic body;
- and
- providing an elongated archwire slot into the body, the archwire slot having a pair of opposing sidewalls and one or both sidewalls being tapered to provide a transverse dimension that varies along the length of the archwire slot whereby the interfacial contact area between a full-sized rectangular archwire received in the archwire slot and the appliance is substantially distributed along the length of the archwire slot as the archwire is twisted about its longitudinal axis.
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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.